Out of the Virtual, Into the Real
by jamelia116
Summary: When she was Borg, Seven visited Unimatrix Zero and fell in love with Axum,who also visited there. When Seven's link with the Borg was broken, so was their romance. Physically, they were many thousands of light years apart, but now here he is! Can what was be again? Missing Scenes from "Unimatrix Zero I & II" and my fanfics "Icheb" and "Destiny." Seven/Axum
1. The Big Bad Giants

**Out of the Virtual, Into the Real**

 **Missing Scenes from "Icheb" and "Destiny," by jamelia**

* * *

 _Note: When I chose to write "Destiny" almost entirely from the point of view of either Icheb or Mezoti, I knew it would limit my ability to portray certain aspects of the story as I'd envisioned it. I could often get around this by having one of the other characters tell Icheb about what happened, or he could summarize the event in his Personal Log entries._

 _That wasn't something I felt I could do for two segments, however. The first was Admiral Kathryn Janeway's thoughts as she accepted the challenge of confronting the Borg Queen on her own turf. "The Last Log of Admiral Kathryn Janeway" tells that part of the story. It's already been posted._

 _I also wanted to show Seven reconnecting with Axum when they finally meet in person at the Rift. At first, I thought it would be a cute little "missing scene," placed after Icheb's suggestion that his mother fix Axum's faulty vocal processor. Icheb perceived that Seven's affections for Axum had not diminished, nor his for her. "Little" and "jamelia stories" are usually mutually exclusive, however. Although this story isn't as long as "Icheb" and "Destiny" (especially if the two are read together, as they should be), this one has also grown in the telling._ _We're going to journey back in time, to Seven's life as Annika Hansen, both before her assimilation, and after, whether she's cavorting with Axum and their compatriots in Unimatrix Zero or on living on_ _Voyager_ _. I hope you find it worth the trip. -jamelia_

* * *

=/\=

"Axum!" she gasped.

"Annika, it is alsso good to ssee you oncse again."

It was impossible. Her cortical array must be malfunctioning, the way it did years ago, when she hallucinated over and over again and reverted to the personas of people who had been assimilated by the Borg. Those memories were still buried inside her head, along with so many other bits of Borg data that she usually could keep under control, but at that time, she could not. Yet there was Korok, too, and the being from the Species 8472 space station in the Delta Quadrant, who had taken on the shape of the gardener at Starfleet Academy.

How could this be happening? Yet surely, it was. She heard the Boothby replicant tell Captain Janeway they wanted to schedule a meeting. Peace talks, he said. They wanted to come on _Voyager_ , and the captain said they could.

Axum. Here? Meeting face to face? It was impossible. He was so far away, on a sphere deep in the Beta Quadrant, they could never expect to meet. Yet in their last meeting in Unimatrix Zero, with that virtual reality sanctuary exploding all around them, he said he would find her. Here he was. Logically, it could never happen.

But now it seemed it would.

=/\=

Mama and Papa were arguing again. Mama kept saying, "We should go back. We have enough data."

Papa didn't agree. "Just a little more time. That's all I need." He left. But then he came back. "Fly, fly!" he cried.

Little Annika didn't know where they were exactly, but she did know one thing. They had traveled very far from home. Far from Aunt Irene, and strawberries, and bouquets of red flowers. Far from anyone she used to know, other than Mama and Papa. Where would they go? How could they fly away, if they didn't have a safe place to fly to?

All they had seen for many, many days, were stars, glowing beautifully into their ship through the windows, like the precious jewels Mama had shown her on their computer screen. Diamonds. Sapphires. Rubies. Amber and Topaz. But the stars were paler in color. Almost as wispy as the veils of gases Mama and Papa called nebulas, which sometimes enfolded their little ship and hid it from that other one. The big one.

The big, dark ugly cube thing they followed. Dark metal cube, studded with evil looking projections and holes like mouths, ready to swallow them, like the bad giants in the fairy tales Mama read to her sometimes. Those stories always ended happily. Jack would cut down the beanstalk, and the bad giant would fall to the ground and die.

Annika didn't know why, but today, she didn't want to think of bad giants. Mama's stories always ended happily for everyone but the giant. But this story was their own; Mama wasn't reading to Annika calmly. No, she was yelling at Papa to get out of there. She was frightened. And that frightened Annika.

She heard the many voices of the Borg echoing throughout the ship as they flew away, as fast as their little ship could fly, looking for a safe place. A place to hide.

Resistance is futile...

She wasn't sure what resistance meant. Was it good or was it bad? But then she heard Mama scream, and Papa was yelling at her, "Run, Annika! Hide!"

She tried to do what Papa told her to do. Annika found her favorite spot under the bulkhead, her hidey-hole where she could crawl back so far, she could almost disappear. Almost.

The big man came. One of his eyes glowed red, as bright as the rubies on the computer screen. She liked red, but she didn't like the red beam of light that shot out of his eye when he looked underneath the bulkhead. She crawled away, as far in as she could, trying to hide.

His arm was too long for her to get away. Instead of a hand, he had a grasping claw that grabbed her by the leg and pulled her out. Metal tubes slipped out of the back of his other hand, like the claws of the gray-striped kitty cat that cousin Anna-Christina had in Sweden. Abby-cat, who scratched Annika on the arm when she tried to pet her.

The metal claws came up to plunge sharp needles into her neck. It hurt, it hurt so much more than Abby-cat's claws had! Annika heard screams. Screams from Mama. Shrieks of fear, coming from her own mouth. Pain! Pain! Worse than anything she'd ever felt before! Metal things sprouted out of her skin so quickly, she couldn't scrape them all away. Pain snaked throughout her body. What was happening to her? What did the evil giant do to her? How could she make him die?

The big evil man with a red laser light for an eye picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. He marched up to other evil giants. One held Mama around the neck, and another held Papa. But they didn't look like Mama and Papa anymore. Metal things were sprouting out of their skin, too. Their skin had turned gray slimy-looking. While their eyes were looking at Annika, they didn't seem to be able to see her as she screamed for them to help her. Their eyes were dead.

The evil giants didn't die. Mama and Papa must have died, instead.

The family of Magnus and Erin Hansen disappeared from _The Raven_ in a wave of energy sent out by a transporter beam to bring them to the big, ugly metal cube. The one they had been following for almost as long as Annika could remember. The big evil giant with the red laser eye carried her through corridors that gleamed with ugly green light. The hallways were as ugly as the outside of the big cube. The giant stopped in front of a little door with a glass window in it. He pushed on a button that was just above it, and the door opened. The giant stuffed Annika inside a metal box, not much bigger than her hiding place on _The Raven_. The one that hadn't hid her away, even though she'd tried to do what Papa had told her to do. The giant fit some sort of mask over her head and face; then he threw the door closed so hard, the clanging sound reverberated all around her. Liquid began to fill the chamber. It deadened the echo as it climbed up around her, filling the chamber until the water rose over her head.

She couldn't be under water. Mama told her once that fishes could swim under water for days, for all of their lives, even, but people would drown without air to breathe. She tried to scream again, but when she did, something went inside her mouth, and the mask over her head wouldn't let her pull the thing out.

Annika began to hear whispers that grew louder and louder, until she realized they came from many voices inside her head, not through her ears. She could tell Mama's and Papa's were in there, but there were so many others, too, she could barely hear her parents. She could barely hear herself, with so many others shouting into her mind. The biggest voice, that loudest one, belonged to some other woman, not Mama. She was telling Annika that her distinctiveness was being added to her own. Annika didn't know what that meant, but suddenly, as if something had switched off, her own inner voice began to fade away. The voices told her it didn't matter. She should just relax. She didn't need to breathe. All she had to do was listen to the voices in her head. They would tell her everything she needed to know when she was grown.

When she was Borg.

=/\=

When Annika woke up, she was in the middle of a beautiful forest. Light dappled down through the leaves of the trees high overhead. She sat up. She didn't know where she was, exactly, but Aunt Irene had taught her a prayer to help her go to sleep when she visited her once.

"Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take."

When Annika asked where the Lord was going to take her soul, Aunt Irene said, "He'll take your soul to Heaven, Annika."

Was this Heaven?

She looked around for Mama and Papa, but she couldn't see them anywhere. At least she was out of that terrible metal hidey-hole filled with water. She didn't have anything over her face to keep her from breathing the clean, sweet air of the forest. The air in forests was so different from the air in spaceships. You could always smell a whiff of machine oil and metal on a spaceship. She had visited the woods in Sweden, and a couple of times on planets where Mama and Papa had brought her on a visit to what they said was "a natural world." In the forest, you could smell earth and grass and leaves and rain and, sometimes, flowers. Red ones, especially. Red flowers were her favorites.

Annika stood up so she could see better. She was standing next to a footpath that led in two directions. Which way should she go? She shrugged her shoulders and walked towards her right.

She hadn't walked too far before a lady came from the other way. She was an alien lady, with bumps on her forehead and chin that weren't like a human's. She smiled when she saw Annika, though. Her mouth and her teeth looked almost the same as Mama's. Her smile was friendly. The lady called out to her, "Hello, little one. Do you know where you are?"

"Am I in Heaven? I need to find my Mama and Papa."

"Well, let's look for them together." They walked along the path for a little while. The lady didn't ask any more questions at first, but then she asked, "What's your name, little one?"

"My name is Annika Hansen. My Mama's name is Erin Hansen. Papa's name is Magnus Hansen. Do you know them?"

"You know, I just met your mother a little while ago. I know where she is. She's been looking all over for you, little Annika. I'm so glad I found you so I could bring you to her."

The lady was telling the truth. When they came to a place where two paths ran in different directions, the alien lady brought her along the lower way, leading to an open clearing where a lot of people were sitting around. At first, it seemed none of were human. but then Annika saw her. "Mama! Mama!"

Mama's head turned around. The sadness flew away from her face as she ran towards Annika, even faster than Annika ran to her. They hugged each other so tightly, Annika didn't know if she'd be able to breathe in the smells of the forest anymore. But this was better. This was Mama, and she smelled like she always did. Whether they were inside _The Raven_ or in forests like this one, Mama always smelled faintly like roses because of the perfume she wore.

When Mama let her go, Annika rested her body against her mother's, while Mama gently stroked the hair off Annika's forehead. Everywhere she looked, the people in the clearing were smiling at them. They must be happy to see a mother find her daughter. But someone was missing.

"Mama, where's Papa?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. I haven't found him yet, but I'm so happy to find you here."

"I'll help you look for him," Annika said.

"I'm sure you will."

"He might be looking for us, too. I was scared when the giant with the red light for one eye grabbed me and put me in the hidey-hole filled with water. If he was put into a hidey-hole like that, he might be scared, too."

Mama didn't say anything. When Annika looked up at her mother's face, she saw the tears. "Don't cry, Mama. We'll find him."

Erin Hansen sighed and hugged her child closer to her again for a moment before looking around her and calling out to the alien lady that had found Annika. "Pennia, I can't thank you enough for finding her. I was so afraid . . ."

"I'm glad I found her, too. It's a big adjustment for any of us." Pennia came close and whispered in Mama's ear, "You do realize she's in a maturation chamber, don't you? She's safe as long as her cube is, so don't worry. You'll be able to visit with her whenever you're both regenerating. She won't be here all the time. Even in the chambers, there are awake periods as well as regeneration times."

"What's a maturuhshun chamber, Mama?"

"Little ears!" Erin exclaimed, laughing.

"She must have very sharp hearing in the real, if she could hear me whispering to you in here," Pennia laughed back ruefully. "I _thought_ I was only talking to Erin. You are a curious little female, aren't you, Annika."

"Yes, I am," Annika replied firmly. "So, what is a matur . . ."

Pennia sighed. "A maturation chamber is a place where children grow up and learn what they need to know to be . . . little one, do you know what a Borg is?"

"I do. Papa and Mama were studying them." She hesitated and looked up at her mother. "What does it mean that I'm in a . . . matur-ra-tion chamber?"

"Honey, you know we tried to get away from the cube Papa was studying, right?"

Annika nodded.

"Well, we didn't make it."

"You mean the bad giants were Borgs, and they susassimilated us?"

"Yes, sweetheart. They assimilated us. We're Borg now, too."

Annika sat down on the grass next to the pathway. Her mother sank to the ground next to her and pulled her into her arms. Pennia walked a little away from them, to give them time to absorb this new, terrible knowledge.

After a short time, Annika climbed into her mother's lap and brushed the tears from her cheeks. There were a lot, so she wasn't able to wipe them all away, but she did the best she could. Erin smiled at her daughter and said, "Thank you, honey. It's so good you're here with me."

"Mama, it will be okay. It's not so bad being a Borg. It doesn't look anything at all like the inside of the cube where they took us. They must have brought us to a nice planet to live instead of being bad giants like them."

"Oh, honey, we _are_ inside the cube. Pennia told me all about this place. We're lucky to be here. We have something called a mutation in our bodies that allows us to visit this place in our minds while we're regenerating. We won't remember being here when we wake up, but the next time we regenerate, we'll come back. We can be together again then."

"What is this place?"

Erin looked up at Pennia, who came closer and told them, "We call this Unimatrix Zero."

"Will Papa visit here, too, Mama?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. We'll keep looking for him whenever we're here." Erin glanced away from Annika then, coughing to clear her throat of the tears that threatened to choke her again.

"Mama, If I'm safe, why are you crying?"

"Oh, dear, you _are_ safe now, but nothing is the same. Nothing. You'll have to be strong and brave. We'll have to learn to adapt, like all the people have in Unimatrix Zero."

Erin hugged her daughter close for a few moments, but then her body stiffened. "Oh, sweetheart, I feel so funny. What's happening to me?" She looked up towards Pennia. "Help me!"

"It will be all right, Erin. You're just waking up on your cube. You won't remember being here when you do, but the next time you regenerate, you'll be back. Annika will be here again, too."

Mama didn't feel like Mama anymore to Annika. She seemed to get all spongy all of a sudden, and then, like the way pictures on the computer screen suddenly fade away into nothingness when it's turned off, Mama flickered away, too. Annika suddenly fell to the ground. Mama had disappeared.

Annika started to scream for her mother. Many people ran towards her, but Pennia was there to pick her up off the ground and carry her inside one of the cloth tents that fluttered in the breeze around the glade. She sat down on a bench, holding the desolate little girl on her lap, and began to sing very softly in a language Annika had never heard before. Slowly, the meaning of the words began to come to her. Pennia was singing everything would be all right soon. Just stay calm. Morning will be here before Annika knew it. All would be well. She promised it would.

Annika stopped crying. She tried to put the pieces of what Mama and Pennia had told her together so she could understand what had happened. She was Borg. She was inside a little hiding place filled with water with a mask over her face and head, but she was here, too. Pennia said Mama would come back again to Unimatrix Zero. They would be together again. Would Papa find them? Maybe he would come to study them, too. She sighed. She didn't understand, but she hoped that she would, someday.

Annika stayed with Pennia for a long time, but then Pennia said, "Annika, I'm going to be going away now, too, like your mother. I'm waking up in the cubicle on my sphere. Will you stay with that boy over there until you wake up and leave, too?"

Annika said she would. Pennia called to the boy, who seemed to be much older than Annika. He started to walk towards them, but Pennia began to go all spongy, too, just like Mama. Before Annika had the chance to take another breath, she thumped down hard on the bench. Pennia was gone. Annika began to cry again.

"Hey, It's okay. I'm here. I'll take care of you," the boy said as he sat down beside her. "I just got here. My regeneration cycle just started. I'm willing to bet you'll be the one who disappears before I do. And when you regenerate again, you'll come back here and find your mama here, too. I don't know your name . . ."

"Annika," she said hesitantly. "My name is Annika Hansen."

The boy had a kind face. He was an alien, like everyone else in the glade, but he wasn't the same kind of alien as Pennia. His forehead was very broad from side to side, and it went up very high. She could hardly see the hair on the top of his head from where she was sitting. His forehead had a shape like a long, flat spoon running down middle of it. She thought it looked a little like the mountain that Papa showed her on the computer, the last time he gave her a lesson in geology. He called it a mesa. Otherwise, he looked almost like a human. Mama had told her she had to be strong and brave, so she asked him, "What's your name?"

"My name is Axum."

"Are you in a matur . . . maturation chamber, too?"

"No. I never was. I was old enough to become a drone right away. I'm Five of Twelve when I'm awake. But when I'm here in Unimatrix Zero, I'm just Axum. Why don't we go over to the shelter on the other side of the pathway. There are young children there you can play with. That's the shelter I go to whenever I'm here. I'm not a grown-up Ioronian yet, so I still like to play sports and games with the other children. Some are young, like you, and some are older, like me. The ones who are about the same age as you are also in maturation chambers. Come, let me introduce you to some of them."

She stopped crying and wiped her eyes. He held out his hand for her. Together, they went to the shelter he'd pointed out. He was right. There were other children there. Annika thought there must be a lot of Borg in maturation chambers.

She had no idea then just how many there were.

=/\=


	2. Gone

=/\=

After playing tag with other children for a while, Annika's hands and feet began to feel funny, and the ground seemed to go all spongy under her feet. She didn't know exactly when she disappeared, but she must have, because for a very few seconds, she was aware of the mask over her face and the water all around her, which told her she was not where she had been.

The voices came back, so many, so many, whispering all sorts of things. Electrons and Protons. Circuitry. The elements. The composition of nebulas and speeding light. Electronic components. Species Classifications. Genetics. Nuclear Physics. How to construct a plasma energy shield. Repairing mechanicals. Omega particles. Perfection. Obey. Comply. Relevant. Irrelevant. Resistance is futile.

Knowledge blasted through her brain while she floated inside the chamber, but one thing she no longer had knowledge of was Unimatrix Zero. No trace of the place remained in her consciousness. And yet, whenever the voices died down in her head, and the stream of facts and procedures and memories from the rest of the Collective paused, as if her mind needed the time to sort through everything so that she could recall it efficiently if she should ever need it, Annika woke up in the green grassy glade and looked for Mama and Papa.

The first time she came back to Unimatrix Zero, Mama was there, too. They wandered a very long way through the forests and among the little settlements along the bay looking for Papa, until Mama left her. They didn't find him, but when her mother began to disappear, Annika wasn't afraid. They knew what was happening, and Mama had enough time to say, "Love you, Annika," just before she faded away. Annika ran to find Pennia, but she must have already awakened, too, because she wasn't around either. Instead, Annika went to the cloth tent where the children liked to gather and found Axum. She didn't need him to comfort her this time. She was sure she'd find Mama waiting for her in the grassy glade the next time Annika came to Unimatrix Zero.

Except Mama never did come back. As often as Annika returned to the glade, she never found her mother again. Mama was gone, just as completely as Papa was. Axum and Pennia helped her search for them at first. Some of the older children from the shelter and many of the other adults looked for them, too, but one by one, everyone else stopped looking. Annika heard whispers that something must have happened to Erin.

Whenever Annika visited after that, everyone was very kind to her, especially Pennia and Axum, but she wasn't Mama. None of them were.

Once, after Pennia had disappeared, Annika decided to be brave. She went to Axum and asked him, "Why can't we find my mother anymore?"

Axum sighed deeply and looked towards the shelters where the adults usually gathered. He shook his head when he saw Pennia wasn't there. None of the others who usually took young Annika under their wing were around either. His brown eyes looked very sad as he finally said, "Disappearing from Unimatrix Zero usually means one thing: death. Borg drones die when their cube is destroyed in some way, or when their bodies fly out into space without any protection. Sometimes after assimilation, a drone won't do well and their nanoprobes won't heal them after their Borg appliances are installed. They don't survive assimilation. Another way someone doesn't return is when a drone is disconnected from the Collective but remains alive. It doesn't happen very often, although every now and then it does. Disconnection and death usually happen at the same time. So, if her drone body was still alive, your mother should have found her way back to Unimatrix Zero the very next time she regenerated." He paused before he asked, "You know what dying means, don't you, Annika?"

"I had a pet _sheraba_ once. He lived with us on The _Raven_ for a year, but then he got sick, and Mama couldn't cure him. He wouldn't eat, and then he closed all four of his eyes and stopped breathing. Mama said he'd died. When I asked her when he would wake up, she said he never would. His spirit was in _sheraba_ heaven, and we had to recycle his body so his atoms could turn into something else - maybe even another _sheraba_. Papa put his little body in his carry case and sent it into a star as we flew by."

Axum's lips almost smiled, but his eyes were still sad. "Yes, you know what dying means, then. But you know, when someone is assimilated, their memories remain behind in the Hive mind even after they die. Your mother's memories should still be part of the Collective. You can try to listen for her."

"I don't hear the voices when I'm in Unimatrix Zero, Axum."

"I don't either, but maybe sometime you'll remember to listen for her memories anyway. Your father's, too, even if you don't remember Unimatrix Zero."

When this regeneration cycle ended, and Annika's body was fading away, she tried to hold on to what Axum had told her, to listen for her parents. She didn't remember what Axum told her when she woke up, but the image of her mother suddenly came into her mind, and she listened for her.

Just before the voices and facts pushed themselves into her mind again, she thought she heard the remnants of her mother's essence, buried deep within the Hive mind. It was so faint, the other voices quickly drowned it out. Then, as always, she ceased to be Annika. She was only a neonatal drone who had no name and no number to call her own.

She had nothing to call her own, not even herself. She was of the Collective. That was all.

=/\=


	3. A Woman Grown

=/\=

Her visits to Unimatrix Zero continued after that. She spent a lot of time with Axum when they were both there. He was always very kind and looked out for her, especially when the bigger children played too rough. Once two years had passed after Annika became Borg, between her visits to Unimatrix Zero and the awake periods when she was being indoctrinated into the ways of the Collective, Annika had matured a great deal. She no longer felt the need to cling so tightly to Pennia and Axum. She greeted them warmly whenever she saw them, of course, but now she went directly to the children's shelter to play. Annika didn't ask for a hug and a kiss from Pennia every time she visited now, and the games she played with the other children no longer interested Axum very much. She noticed he had grown even taller, and that he was very handsome, but he was an adult now. He spent most of his time on the other side of the clearing, with them. Axum was too grown up to be included in her circle of friends.

Annika was totally unaware of the changes in her own body which were transforming her into a much different being, even though her physical image reflected those changes when she visited Unimatrix Zero. For a while she became very long limbed, like the baby horses in the pictures Mama had shown her on _The Raven's_ computer screen. Thanks to the maturation chamber's influence, both form and face developed much earlier than they would have if she'd remained Annika Hansen, the daughter of Magnus and Erin Hansen, who lived on the small starship _The Raven._ She still remembered they'd performed very important experiments on their ship, but Annika could no longer recall exactly what they were.

By the time Annika had been Borg for five years, she no longer looked like a coltish girl child or an adolescent. At a chronological age of eleven terrestrial years, Annika looked more like an eighteen-year-old human, a woman grown. She was now a beauty, although she had no concept of what that term actually meant. Beauty was irrelevant.

During one of her awake periods, as she floated in her maturation chamber, an alarm sounded. The waters around her receded, until she was sitting at the bottom, coiled into a fetal position, naked except for the many metal implants which had been sprouting all over and through her body from the time she was first assimilated on _The Raven_. The door of her chamber opened. The mask over her head and face opened and fell away. Two medical drones stood before her and pulled her out of her chamber. A multitude of voices sounded in her mind, all saying the same thing: "Adjunct of a Unimatrix To Be Assigned, it is time."

One drone walked in front of her. The other pushed her forward from behind. The three walked along the corridors of the Borg cube, turning right, right, left, and right again. The schematics of this cube had been forced inside her brain. She knew exactly where they would end up: the Assimilation Center. The medical drones pushed her onto a table. They encased her body in a suit of black leather and connected the terminals of her metal implants to the leads in her suit. Energy surged through her body along the pathways that had been built inside her by nanoprobes. For five years they'd done their work as she'd grown in size, until she'd become their end product: a fully formed, adult drone.

Two things remained to be done. The drones fit her left arm with circuitry sufficient to support whatever instrumentation would be attached to that limb once her initial assignment took place. The second was to gouge out her left eye and replace it with an ocular implant, which vastly increased the range of visual frequencies a member of Species 5618 could perceive naturally.

When they were done with their tasks, the medical drones pulled her roughly up and off the table. Blood still spurted out of her orbital socket and ran down her face as they thrust her down another corridor. Eventually, they reached a particular cubicle.

The voices in her head announced her designation. "Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01, this is your assigned regeneration cubicle. When your energy reserves require refurbishment, you are to go here."

The voices were unaware of an essential fact about Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01. While her depleted energy reserves were being replaced in her cubicle, she would also travel to a virtual sanctuary of forested hillsides, rushing streams, grassy knolls, and individuals like herself, all of whom bore, as her mother also had, a recessive gene which had mutated at the time nanoprobes were first injected into her body - when she had become Borg.

Seven of Nine was different from most. She was "one in a million," a drone who had the capacity to recapture a smidgeon of the consciousness she would have known throughout her waking life if she had not become Borg. Seven of Nine/Annika Hansen was one of the fortunate few who could experience a virtual existence, a life, in Unimatrix Zero.

=/\=


	4. Vorothon Gorge

=/\=

Years passed. The chronometer in her cortical array kept time to the microsecond, but when she came to the sanctuary of Unimatrix Zero, she refused to acknowledge its passing. At first, she continued to socialize with the older children who gathered in their shelter, but gradually, she lost interest in their games. She still liked to play sports, but now she often wandered over to the other side of the pathway to visit the adults. Pennia was still there to welcome her, and Axum often came by, too. Sometimes they took walks through the woods, speaking of things they'd learned during their awake times.

One of Seven of Nine's excursions had brought her knowledge of a place which many who came to Unimatrix Zero knew of. Unimatrix 01 had traveled to a deep gash cut through a rocky cliff. From a short distance below the crest, but still high up on the cliff, water flowed freely, splashing down into a small lake. The designation of this place was part of the Collective's pool of knowledge: Vorothon Gorge. A store of minerals which the Collective coveted lay deep beneath the surface of the cliff, not far from the falls. The Borg cared nothing for beauty, but Seven of Nine's Unimatrix 01 decided to remove the minerals from the other side of the cliff, leaving the gorge and its waterfall alone. Annika asked Axum, "Do you think we spared the falls because the individuals who knew of it before they were assimilated still appreciated it? It never occurred to us to destroy the waterfall to get to what we wanted, although the Hive mind itself doesn't care one way or the other."

Axum didn't answer immediately. He seemed to be pondering his answer, but at a fork in the path he directed her to turn to the right. They walked along a path they'd never taken before. In fact, it was one Annika didn't remember ever seeing before. Finally, he said, "It's possible."

"Is that all you're going to say?" she asked, laughing lightly.

"No, but let's walk along this path for a while more. I'm sure I'll come up with something."

They hiked for a while. The topography began to look a little familiar to Annika. The trees began to thin, and the breeze freshened as the pair entered a grassy clearing. Annika noticed the air seemed different here, thinner, yet more humid. Looking ahead, beyond the edge, she could see nothing but sky.

They walked across the clearing and stopped. At the edge, the ground broke off, forming a sheer cliff, overlooking a broad, pleasant valley. Then she noticed they were standing on those same cliffs which she'd just described to Axum. To their left they could see the waterfall, with billows of mist rising up towards them as its water plunged into the rock-lined basin. "Vorothon Gorge!" she said, her voice hushed in wonder. She looked over her shoulder at Axum. "Did you do this?"

He smiled at her. "Not exactly. This overlook and view have been here for as long as I've come to Unimatrix Zero. I just never thought to bring you here before. I did create the fork in the path, though, so we could get here more quickly. I'm not sure how much longer I've got before I wake up in the 'real.'"

"It's beautiful, Axum. It looks exactly the way I remember from my visit to this place. I wish you and I could visit it together in the real world."

"So do I, but we're not inside the same vessel, are we?"

"There is no Five of Twelve, Secondary Adjunct of Triimatrix 942 on my cube. Where are you?"

"I don't know the where, but my vessel isn't a cube, it's a sphere."

"So we won't ever meet in the real world," she said softly.

"Not necessarily. The Queen transfers drones from one vessel to another, according to her needs - or maybe her whims. I know of several who've come to our sanctuary who've reported a change in their designations. That implies a move of some kind."

"Well, I hope that happens to one of us, too, and we end up on the same vessel. Axum, are there any other places you'd like to visit in the real world?"

By the time Axum had faded back into his awake cycle, they'd created a list of places they'd like to visit together in the "real." After he was gone, Annika thought about walking back to their clearing, but she decided to stay here until she faded into her cubicle. Perched at the edge of the overlook, Annika watched the water streaming steadily down as it splashed into the basin below. The mist rose high above the level of the water, and as the sun's angle changed ever so slightly, twin rainbows appeared. Annika thought it was the loveliest sight she'd ever seen in real life _or_ in the virtual reality of Unimatrix Zero.

She held onto that thought and that view until the ground started going spongy beneath her bottom, and the voices announced that Seven of Nine's regeneration cycle was complete. Refreshed, totally unaware that the power surging through her implants might not be the only reason for this drone's positive state of being, Seven of Nine strode crisply out of her cubicle and followed the routine set for her by the Hive mind.

=/\=


	5. The Need to Say Goodbye in Advance

=/\=

From time to time, new beings materialized in Unimatrix Zero while others disappeared. A few only came to the sanctuary once or twice, like Erin Hansen, but most returned many times before their presence was missed. Intellectually, Annika knew that when someone didn't return, that being had probably perished. Those who were close to the one who had been lost always gathered to say goodbye to the one who was gone, once it became apparent the absence was permanent. Afterwards, they all would go on as they had before, relishing life as an individual as much as they could during each visit.

When Pennia disappeared, however, everyone who was in the clearing at the time was shocked. One minute, Pennia was walking along, chatting and laughing with Annika, Axum, and Kuruun. The next, without any warning, she was gone. Her dematerialization hadn't been marked by the subtle flickering that usually indicated a being's regeneration cycle was about to end. She departed abruptly, in the middle of a sentence - indeed, in the middle of a word. Annika exchanged glances with Axum. He shrugged it off, saying that her cycle must have ended prematurely. She had only been with them for a very short time that cycle, but perhaps Axum was right. Annika hoped he was right, because she felt a sudden chill, a premonition that the explanation for Pennia's abrupt exit would turn out to be much more ominous. From the way Axum's brows furrowed in a way they seldom did, Annika suspected he also thought the event was not as innocuous as he'd suggested.

They never saw Pennia again. Like Erin Hansen, she had disappeared from Unimatrix Zero for good. Everyone waited for a couple of cycles to make sure, but as soon as the first of them began to return from their waking times, when the Collective's knowledge flooded their minds, they were certain she wasn't going to come back as she always had, to laugh with her friends and comfort new arrivals, especially children, to help them adjust to their new virtual existence. This task was left to others, and it was a vital one, for right after Pennia disappeared, an influx of newcomers appeared in Unimatrix Zero, most of whom were representative of species new to the Borg. A dangerous enemy had been engaged in battle at a place known as Wolf 359. For the first time, Annika saw a human not of her family come to Universe Zero, as well as a being she recognized as a Klingon. Their presence would have intrigued Annika at another time, but losing Pennia was almost as overwhelming to her as her mother's loss had been. Annika's initial greetings to Korok and Laura were muted in comparison to the welcome they would have received if they had arrived at any other time.

Pennia's memorial in the clearing was a more subdued affair than most. Afterwards, to relieve their melancholy mood, Axum and Annika hiked to the facsimile of Vorothon Gorge. They stood at the overlook for a short time after their arrival. At first they didn't say anything to each other, but eventually, Annika began to speak of her first day in Unimatrix Zero, when Pennia had found her and delivered her safely to her mother. Axum described the first time he'd appeared in the clearing. Pennia had been the first to greet him, too, calming him down and explaining to the agitated youth where he was and, more importantly, who he would be from then on. "I was very confused about everything that had just happened to my people. I'd never even heard of the Borg before they assimilated my species. Pennia was so good to me, Annika. As long as I'm able to come here and be myself, with an individual's memories instead of only the ones permitted by the Hive, I'll remember her for her kindness."

"I'll never forget her either, Axum. You both helped me search for Mama when she didn't come back. You knew right from the beginning what must have happened to her, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, I suspected your mother was dead right away, but sometimes one of us will spend time in another area of this sanctuary, for reasons we don't understand, and then will turn up later. Your mother had only been here twice. Pennia and I told each other we had to try to find her, in case she'd simply landed in the wrong part of Unimatrix Zero. Down by the bay, perhaps, or deeper within the woods. We also thought it would be better for you to look for her instead of sitting around crying about missing her. Taking action helps someone cope with terrible loss. I was happy to help. I think you accepted your mother's absence better because, in the end, we didn't need to tell you she was never coming back. You came to that realization on your own."

They sat down on the edge of the outlook and watched the rainbows disappear as the sun moved too low in the sky to kiss the mists into refracted loveliness. As darkness descended, a moon appeared in the sky, then another. Annika leaned against Axum's side and sighed, "I'm going to miss her so much."

"I think everyone in our group in the clearing is going to miss her. But we'll remember Pennia as long as we're able to come here and share our memories of her."

"To honor her, we should always reach out and try to help newcomers, the way she helped us when we came here for the first time."

"Especially the children," Axum replied.

"Yes, especially them. Should we go back to the clearing to tell the others?"

"It's pretty dark out now, Annika. Why don't we stay here at the overlook for the rest of our cycles. We arrived here at the same time. We'll probably wake up about the same time, too."

Annika nodded leaned her head against his shoulder for a short time before she suddenly sat up straight, rigidly erect in the posture she always maintained when she was Seven of Nine. "Is something wrong, Annika?" he asked.

She turned to look directly at his face. "I just thought . . . Axum. We won't ever know if either of us will stop coming here. Our bodies could die in service to the Collective at any time. I need to tell you something, in case one of us never returns. Axum, you have been my true friend ever since the first day I came to Unimatrix Zero. I want you to know that I . . . well, I wanted you to know how happy you've made me, because you've been my friend for so long."

She could see him smile despite the darkness, since his teeth reflected a little of the light from the bigger of the two moons. "What a lovely thing to say. I feel the same way. . . that is, well, I think I may feel it even more. You have become very precious to me, Annika Hansen. I hope we'll always find each other when we come to Unimatrix Zero."

Annika rested her head against his shoulder again. His arm tightened around her ever so slightly. His touch comforted her. She thought he was holding her close to protect her from the overlook's edge. No one knew if a fall like this would be fatal in the "real" to the drone whose Unimatrix Zero avatar plunged down. No one had ever wanted to volunteer to find out.

She became aware of his chin touching the top of her head. She wasn't sure, but it almost felt like he'd touched his lips to her hair. Mama had done that whenever she tucked her little Annika into bed on _The Raven_. The sweet memory brought a smile to Annika's lips, blocking away any thought that he might have meant anything more than that by his touch.

On this night, as Axum had predicted, Annika and Axum sensed their cycles' ending at virtually the same moment. They didn't bother to say goodbye. Words of farewell didn't seem necessary. In a way, they'd already been said.

=/\=


	6. Assimilation Stories

=/\=

Around the time that Korok the Klingon and Laura the human arrived in Unimatrix Zero, the makeup of Annika's Unimatrix 01 changed. Four of Nine's body had aged to the point that his nanoprobes could no longer keep him healthy, and he had been replaced by a younger drone who'd been assimilated the previous year.

Three of Nine's cortical node began to fail while Unimatrix 01 was flying a scout ship in a binary star system, assessing the planets for desirable resources. Nothing of value was found, and they headed back towards their cube as soon as they learned of Three of Nine's malfunctioning. Three of Nine died while they were on their way back, and Seven of Nine's attempt to resuscitate her through the modified nanoprobe technique was insufficient to revive her. The medical drones on their cube inserted a replacement cortical node, but it was too late to save her. The replacement Three of Nine proved to be one of the beings assimilated at Wolf 359. Laura knew of her, and that she had also been a Starfleet officer, but the two were not personally acquainted. Laura was able to identify the new Three of Nine's species as Bajoran, however. Since the newcomer did not possess the mutation allowing visits to Unimatrix Zero, Annika did not learn the pre-assimilation designation of the new member of her unimatrix at that time.

Whenever Axum was absent from Unimatrix Zero while Annika and Laura were together at the sanctuary, the two human women enjoyed speaking with one another. Through their conversations, Annika felt she gained valuable insight about what it was like to be a human - not that it was necessarily enough for complete understanding. In many ways, Annika wasn't sure she truly was human anymore. It had been so long since she'd been around any. Laura had become Borg when she was an adult, not a child, however. Annika hoped she could serve as her guide to becoming more human, even if that "becoming" could only take place in the virtual world of Unimatrix Zero.

=/\=

The friendship with Axum that began on Annika's first day in Unimatrix Zero continued to thrive. If anything, they'd become even closer over time. While they still had no knowledge of exactly which Borg vessels contained their physical bodies, nor where their respective vessels were positioned relative to each other's, they no longer allowed that to bother them. They enjoyed their virtual lives and shared whatever they could about what they'd learned in the "real" world of the Collective. She told him of the circumstances of her assimilation, or as much of it as she still recalled. Those early memories were fading, since she had not yet reached the age of seven years when she became Borg. Sometimes he could tell her things about that first day in Unimatrix Zero which she could no longer recall. Pennia had relayed details of what Annika and her mother had said to each other after Pennia brought Annika to Erin.

When Annika asked Axum about how he had become Borg, he recalled many more details of his last day as an individual. He'd been older, just entering adolescence when he was assimilated. He remembered his terror when the Borg forced everyone at his school into the courtyard and separated them into two groups. The younger students were sent to one end, and the teachers and older children, including Axum, were herded towards the other. Drones plunged assimilation tubules into the necks of Axum and his classmates one by one. Axum was one of the last to be attacked, and as a result, he observed the different ways the children were handled, which seemed to have been based upon their level of physical development. After the attacking drones plunged their assimilation tubes into the necks of the youngest victims, the children were hoisted over their attacker's shoulders and waves of colored light enveloped them.

"Then they disappeared. The teachers and the older students like me were held between a pair of drones. They kept us from trying to escape while the nanoprobes were injected into our necks. I saw metal things sprouting through my schoolmates' skin as it turned a spotty gray, and I remember thinking that I hoped they wouldn't do that to me. Of course they did. Then the waves of light surrounded us, too. The schoolyard disappeared and was replaced by a world of metal, lit a very strange acid green. I didn't know the metal things were implants, or that the colored light was from a transporter beam, until after my own transformation provided me with the explanation. I'd never seen a transporter in action before. I don't know if my people had ever even thought about inventing that mode of transportation. The Ioroni had attained space flight within our own star system, but we'd only just begun to experiment with something called 'warping space' propulsion. In general, our technologies couldn't have added much to the Hive mind."

"If that's so, why did the Collective see your people as worthy of assimilation?"

"I believe our physical natures were the true prize. We're strong and healthy. I know now that we're very long-lived, compared to many other species which have been assimilated by the Collective. We're a very adaptable people, too. The members of Species 6147 were assessed by the first Borg scouts to have the potential of becoming excellent drones. And our star system was exceptionally well-stocked with minerals. That must have been a primary attraction for the Borg Queen to attack us, as well."

"The younger children in your school . . . do you think they were placed into maturation chambers?"

"From what you told me about the way your 'bad giant' handled you on _The Raven,_ I believe they were."

"Have you ever seen any of your people on your sphere? Or here in Unimatrix Zero?"

"No, Annika. I've never seen any of the Ioroni again. After my assimilation was complete, I was transferred from the cube that attacked my planet to another, and a short time later, to my sphere. It's large, but it's much smaller than any of the cubes."

"So you're alone now, like me."

"Yes, we're both alone."

"I'm glad we have each other."

The tone of his voice grew deeper, gentler, and much softer. "So am I, Annika. So am I."

=/\=


	7. The Crash

=/\=

"Where have you been?" Axum yelled as Annika appeared in Unimatrix Zero. "Didn't you regenerate at all for the past few time periods? I looked for you everywhere. I couldn't find you anywhere in Unimatrix Zero."

"I . . . I wasn't anywhere else. I didn't regenerate because I was . . . lost. There was an accident. Our scout vessel crashed. My Unimatrix was severed from the Collective."

"Are you all right? Did the medical drones have to piece you back together?"

"No, I was . . . I was physically whole. But five of the others died. And three of them were . . . it was very difficult for us." Annika looked away from him. She didn't know what to say to Axum. What happened was so . . . upsetting.

Axum examined her closely, like he was trying to read her mind, even though they were here in Unimatrix Zero, where there was no subvocal communication. Finally he said, "I can see it was difficult. If you tell me what happened, maybe I can help."

She allowed him to pull her over to one of the benches along the path, but out of the way of the others visiting their clearing that day.

"Axum, how long was I away?"

"We missed you for four regeneration periods."

She sighed. "I didn't know how long I was parted from the Collective. I was an individual again, and I didn't like it. I watched Six of Nine die when I found him. I was frightened. And the others didn't understand. "

"If you were an individual, you weren't of the Collective anymore. How is it you're here now? Not that I'm unhappy about it. I would have been upset if you had disappeared forever."

"Like Pennia did."

"Yes," he said soberly. "Like Pennia."

"The Collective found us again. We'd set up a beacon. They must have triangulated our position before Two of Nine smashed it." She paused, disquieted, before saying. "Lansor smashed it. That was his designation . . . what he was called before he was assimilated." She looked at Axum then, beseeching him to understand. "He didn't want to be of the Collective anymore. None of them did."

Axum pulled her into his arms and held her close as she sobbed out her pain. These memories were painful. She didn't want to remember them, but here, in Unimatrix Zero, the entire incident was clear, as if burned into her memory. It seemed that any attempt to remove it would scar her forever.

Finally, he said very gently, "Did they get away? Are you the only one who was retrieved? Is that why you're so upset?"

"No. I . . . I found them after they left me. I reassimilated them into the Collective. We waited there until another Borg vessel came for us." She pulled her head away from his chest and looked into his face as she said, "Did I do wrong?"

Axum could not respond to her question right away. To be severed from the Collective and live only in his own head, the way he could in Unimatrix Zero, was a dream he'd always cherished when he was here and could think for himself. But if that dream ever did come true, he'd never find Annika again. How much would he even remember about their time together?

He sighed, but before he could say anything, Annika said sadly, "You _do_ think I did wrong."

"Oh, Annika, I don't, really. You said you were frightened. Is that why you decided to reassimilate them?"

"I couldn't bear to be alone. They could remember what their life was like before. Lansor, and P'Chan, and Marika Willkara were grownups when the Borg took them. They could have survived on their own. But without my parents to take care of me, I didn't know if I knew enough to be on my own. I need to be Borg when I'm awake. The Collective lets me know what I need to do and how I should act. I'm happy with my individuality when I'm here with you in Unimatrix Zero. It's . . . it's not like my body is really here. It was different on that planet. What if the Borg hadn't found us again? How could we live?"

"I understand now. You were so very young when you were assimilated. You never had a chance to learn how to rely on yourself, to make choices, or how to take care of yourself. Annika, I'm glad you came back to me. I wouldn't want to lose you now."

"But you do think I should have let them go."

"It's too late now to do anything about it, Annika."

She wasn't fooled by his prevarication, even though it was certainly true. What had been done could not be undone now. Annika began to cry. Axum hugged her even closer, to comfort her in her distress.

Annika did feel better when he held her like this, enfolded within his arms. She liked whatever they did together. She looked up at him. His face . . . he was looking at her like . . . a memory of Mama and Papa came to her. They had looked like that at each other sometimes. A lot of the time. Even when they argued, they looked like that when they made up.

She remembered what her parents would do when they were close in each other's arms like this. She gently touched her lips to his.

His response was immediate. He returned her kiss, and then it deepened until she thought that if she had been in the real world with him like this, she might have fainted. Her feelings of guilt remained, but now, it seemed she could bear it. What was she feeling? It was like she felt when she was with Mama and Papa . . . but different. Hesitantly, she said, "This is very nice, Axum. I never thought about kissing you before, but now it feels . . . right. Like we're meant to be together like this."

"Oh, Annika, I've felt that whenever I've been with you for the past year. Maybe longer. I wanted to tell you, but I could only be patient and hope you might feel the same way about me someday. I love you."

A sense of wonder came over her, so strong, that all she could say was, "I think I love you, too."

=/\=


	8. An Imperfect Paradise

=/\=

Whenever they visited their sanctuary, the first thing they did was look for each other. The highlight of their time was just being together, sharing their thoughts, hopes, and memories, bad or good, from the time they'd been apart. They spent every second of their regeneration time that they could together. They sealed their love with kisses and hugs.

After a time, however, Annika detected signs that Axum was pulling away from her. When they spoke with one another, there were times he stopped what he was saying and, when he began to speak again, he'd changed the subject. When she asked him if anything was wrong, he always said no, nothing was wrong. Annika didn't believe him.

Didn't he care for her anymore?

One day, when Axum left Unimatrix Zero a little earlier than usual, Annika found Laura, the Starfleet officer who had become her mentor. Laura was always willing to answer her questions about life, whenever she became perplexed about something that had happened.

Laura patiently listened to Annika's fears about losing Axum's regard. When Annika fell silent, she waited for her friend to tell her that she was just being silly. Nothing was wrong. Axum still cared for her as he always had.

The longer she waited for an answer from Laura, the more concerned Annika became. At long last, Laura asked her to describe how they shared their feelings with one another. "What do you mean? When we spend time alone, we talk about how happy we are that we found each other. We hug and kiss, and he holds me close. We like to go hiking sometimes, especially to the Vorothon Gorge outlook or along the bay. And we visit with everyone here. You see us here a lot."

Laura shook her head sadly. "I thought it might be like that. Annika, you were a small child when you were assimilated. Axum was old enough to become a drone, but he wasn't what we call sexually mature in the way adults are. Do you understand the . . . mechanics of single cell reproduction?"

"I know a lot about it from my Collective memories."

"Tell me how two people make love." Annika began to describe the process to Laura, but she didn't find it very easy to do. It wasn't because she was embarrassed about the subject. She was familiar with the concept of embarrassment, but Annika did not believe she'd ever felt that way. Embarrassment was irrelevant. No, the reason she found it difficult and was stumbling over her words stemmed from the fact that she really _didn't_ understand the process very well. The Borg had assimilated beings from many different species. Although she tried to sift through all of their memories to come up with a coherent answer, she couldn't be sure of what to say. She only had two parents, so humans must be of a species that required two people to create a new being; but some required three or four, and a few even more, to create a single individual. Eventually, Annika reluctantly acknowledged, "Laura, I need time to put everything in the proper order to respond to your question."

Laura sighed. "Annika, it's not that complicated. The reason you can't respond to my question is that you really don't understand. "

Annika was momentarily stunned. She began to feel a little angry, even if that was an irrelevant emotion. Then she remembered that the reason she'd come to Laura for advice in the first place was that she'd already helped her understand much about what humanity was like. She didn't know of any other humans in Unimatrix Zero. The only Ioroni here was Axum. She didn't want to ask him about this. Chastened, Annika pleaded, "Please, tell me what it's like."

"Oh, Annika, I wish I could, but I'm afraid I can't. No one can. Unimatrix Zero is a paradise for those of us who are able to visit here, but it's not a perfect one. We can feel emotions we've experienced in our lives before assimilation, which is why those who became Borg as adults understand so much more than those who were assimilated as children. But even for us, when it comes to making love, there's an important component in the 'real' that's missing from Unimatrix Zero. It stops us from expressing our feelings completely in a physical way."

"You're right. I don't understand. What stops us?"

"Annika, we experience Unimatrix Zero in our minds. Our bodies remain on our vessels. We can remember sensations, but we can't recreate hormones in the bodies we live in here. We do our best to remember how we used to feel when we consummated our love, but we can't experience it again. Not really. We often speak of that here. We remember touch, and we can try to mimic the movements of loving another, but we just don't feel what we did when we were individuals. Those who were children when they became Borg don't have those memories. The Hive mind doesn't maintain what it considers to be irrelevant, and to the Queen, physical love is irrelevant. The memories of loving in the Collective mind are a mere shadow of the reality. We can recall loving our partners here, but we can't renew the memories the way non-Borg people do when they experience physical love. This is a _virtual_ reality. We're not here in reality, even though we sometimes forget that when we're happy here."

Annika pondered what Laura said for a long while. Finally, she repeated what she understood of Laura's explanation, supplemented by data she could recall from the Hive mind: "Hormones are substances made in the body of a being which serve many functions in that organism. We can remember how they would act in our bodies in some situations here, but most of the time, we cannot. Children don't sense the ones associated with single-cell reproduction because they are not produced until a person is 'sexually mature.' Are you saying that since we can't create hormones here, we can't function the way individuals do in the 'real?' That since Axum and I were still children when we became Borg, we'll never create them at all? Because Unimatrix Zero is an illusion?"

Laura put her arm around Annika's shoulders and said, mournfully, "That's what I'm saying."

They didn't say anything for a while. Finally, Annika asked, "I understand more about this now. We can experience mental love, but not physical love. Do you think that this is why Axum seems to be falling out of love with me?"

"Kuruun told me Axum came to him a short while ago. They had a conversation about 'the facts of life' in Unimatrix Zero that was pretty close to the one we're having now. I don't think Axum is falling out of love with you. I think he's mourning the loss of an experience he'd hoped to be able to share with you. Remember, he was old enough to observe his parents and people around him who loved each other physically as well as mentally. He has a pretty good idea what he's missing."

"And mental love isn't enough for him."

"I'm not saying that, Annika. The truth is, physical love is only a part of what two individuals feel when they fall in love. I'd say if people are truly well matched, even more of it is a mental kind of love. I believe the two of you do love one another, but you need to accept the limitations of our existence here. Unimatrix Zero is a wonderful place. We're lucky to be here. But, as I said a little while ago, it's not a perfect replica of real life. Eventually, even those of us who shared our lives body and soul before assimilation soon find physical closeness and the meeting of true minds replacing attempts to recapture passion. When we try, since we don't have true bodies, it's like we're phantasms floating together, or molecules of water passing alongside and through each other in a stream. We know what we're missing, and it's frustrating not to feel that rush of fulfillment from our joining. And, of course, we can't create a new child. The only way the Borg reproduce is by assimilating the body and mind of someone created through sexual reproduction, by one of the many species the Borg have identified."

"And lovers here can't even promise to always be here for each other, because we never know when our drone bodies will die, and we won't be," Annika observed.

"Well, people in the 'real' may promise that, but their lives are subject to death, too. One difference is that when they expire, they can leave a family they've created to live on behind them. We really can't do that."

"We may not be related to each other by blood, but don't you think we've formed a kind of family among our group here? We care about each other. I know I cared about Pennia after my mother disappeared, and I'm very grateful that you're here with me now. I mean, since you _are_ Borg now, I'm glad you're able to come here. I appreciate all you've done for me since you've come here."

Laura's smile was a melancholy one. "Since we can't change the fact that we were assimilated, I'm glad we're able to come to Unimatrix Zero. At least we have this 'imperfect' sort of family life to look forward to, during this portion of our existence."

"Thank you for sharing this with me," Annika said. "I think this must be why Axum has been so distant from me lately."

"Don't presume, Annika. The next time you're here together, talk this over with him."

"I will. I think I must be waking up in the 'real' now. Thanks again, Laura." Annika flickered away.

Laura sat on the bench in the shelter for quite a while, going over what she'd said to Annika. She'd relayed the sad facts of life in Unimatrix Zero as succinctly as she could. She wished Annika could have been spared the knowledge of this dark side of life in their sanctuary, but she was too intelligent not to realize, eventually, that something was missing - just as Axum had. Annika was young, however, and so was Axum. Hopefully, the fact that their love could never be complete wouldn't ruin what they _could_ share with each other in Unimatrix Zero.

When her Kuruun appeared a little later, Laura went to him immediately and greeted him with a tender hug and kiss. He appreciated the display of affection, but from the sad expression on his love's face, he knew something was wrong. Once she'd told him about how she'd spent her afternoon, he commiserated with her. While both had been assimilated as adults, here in virtual reality, they were really no better off than Axum and Annika when it came to expressing their love.

=/\=

The next time Annika returned to Unimatrix Zero, she immediately sought out Axum. She found him sitting on a bench just outside the clearing, deep in thought. "I think I know what's bothering you. Laura explained the 'facts of life' to me. Axum, as long as we can be together, I'll be happy with whatever we can share with each other."

He held out his hands and pulled her towards him. They held each other close, enjoying each other's presence, and touching each other oh, so gently. Annika and Axum both knew what touch felt like in the 'real.' If this was the best they could do in Unimatrix Zero, where everyone lived the semblance of a life, not a real one, then that's what they would do.

Despite its limitations, the time they spent with each other in Unimatrix Zero was precious. They never wanted it to end.

=/\=


	9. Species 8472, a Ship, and a Plan

=/\=

When five members of Annika's Unimatrix 01 were lost on Planet 1865 Alpha, it was radically reconstituted. The only remaining drone in that Unimatrix was Seven of Nine herself. The others were dispersed. When Seven of Nine was awake, she integrated well with the others. She had not received the highest designation of Nine of Nine, but it didn't matter. While there was a hierarchal structure to each Unimatrix, and to the Borg as a whole, the drones were basically unable to recognize that fact. The numerical designations within each Unimatrix provided a guide for them to act in an orderly, coordinated manner. When Annika returned to Unimatrix Zero for the first time after the change, she mentioned it to Axum, but it wasn't a matter that led to much discussion for the couple. Such transfers, as Annika had learned, were common after a Unimatrix was badly fractured through death.

Laura was far more intrigued when Annika revealed the details of the incident to her. The fact that the Unimatrix had been lost but the survivors rescued was all that was stored in the Collective mind. "Lieutenant Marika Willkarah was an excellent officer. She was on the _Excalibur."_

"What ship were you on when you . . . " Annika hesitated. She didn't know how Laura would feel if she asked Laura her location when she was assimilated.

Laura understood what she'd tried to ask, however, and informed her, "I was on the _Kyushu_."

"Was Korok in Starfleet?"

Laura smiled. "No, he was in the service of the Klingon Empire. His ship was in the area when the Borg invaded the Federation. There's nothing a Klingon warrior likes more than a chance to gain honor by fighting in a just cause." She sighed. "If he'd died, he would have gone to Sto-vo-kor with those of his race who died in honorable battle. I'm sorry for Korok. Since he was assimilated, he still lives. I never asked him what he thought of his chance to die in an honorable battle now. I don't really want to."

"Understood," Annika replied, although she wasn't sure she really did.

=/\=

Seven of Nine's Unimatrix 01 frequently participated in the assimilation of technology and people, wiping out the populations of entire planetary systems. When she was Annika, the actions she'd taken as Seven of Nine depressed her. Axum did his best to comfort her. What else could they do? They had no power to resist the wishes of the Borg Queen.

How this central personage came to have such power was a frequent topic of conversation in the shelters of their clearing. Although the almighty Borg Collective supposedly shared all the knowledge they obtained through assimilation, this question was unanswerable. Apparently, certain knowledge was _not_ shared with the rest of the Collective. Were Queens made? Or had there only been one, for centuries, perhaps even millennia? They did not know. They did know the Queen resided in the Unicomplex, which was comprised of many huge Borg vessels. Where was it located? Was it capable of moving around the galaxy to escape trouble? And who could possibly resist against the All-Mighty Borg?

During visits to other settlements along the bay and the ocean beaches, Annika and Axum asked the same questions to the others who visited Unimatrix Zero. No one knew any more than they did. No average drone of the Collective required this knowledge.

=/\=

The routines Annika and Axum followed in Unimatrix Zero continued for several years. Those who came reported that no species could stand against the Borg and survive intact. When the Borg discovered a technology or a people they wanted, they would add its distinctiveness to the Collective. Planet after planet, system after system, fell to the Borg. None had the power to stop them - none, that is, until they met a species as diametrically opposed to the machine-like Borg as anyone could imagine. To bring them under her control, the Queen was willing to throw away Borg vessels with such profligacy, multitudes of new drones would need to be assimilated, just to maintain the Borg's current level of strength.

There was just one problem. This species refused to be assimilated.

Species 8472 lived in another dimension of space. The Borg discovered an entrance to their realm accidentally, when a fissure opened in the space-time continuum and revealed the existence of previously unknown states of matter. They found something previously unimaginable; instead of the relative emptiness of normal space, with a scattering of stars and particles of matter, as ephemeral as the gases in a nebula or as solid as rocky-body planets, "space" was a fluid. In this realm of Species 8472, all was biological in nature. The laws of physics governing matter and energy here were uniquely different from that of the rest of the galaxy. Ruling this Fluidic Space, and particularly the beings who inhabited it within ships made entirely of biological substances, would surely provide a new kind of weapon for the Borg. Once the people in this space were assimilated, no other species could withstand the Collective. Resistance truly would be futile.

Since the physics of the place were entirely new, however, what had worked for the Borg in the quadrants of normal space didn't work as well against this new enemy. In fact, the enemy's weaponry could destroy the largest cubes easily, seemingly without effort. When Axum and Annika met with their friends in Unimatrix Zero, they discussed these new enemies, or what little they knew of them. They couldn't decide whether to hope for this new species to continue to resist the Queen successfully, or if it would be better for the stability of the galaxy for Species 8472 to become part of the Borg and allow the Queen to reign supreme over all.

"I admire the courage of this new species! They refuse to submit to the Queen's tyranny. If only we in Unimatrix Zero could ally ourselves with them in some way!" Korok enthused.

"Unfortunately, as soon as we wake up, we ourselves become subject to the total domination of the Queen," Annika said.

"We could investigate ways of reaching each other during our waking times while we are here in Unimatrix Zero," Kuruun offered. "If we knew of it at all times, perhaps we could devise a way to assist them. Of course, they seem to be doing fairly well against us without our help!"

Axum warned, "If we know about this place when we are awake, that knowledge would filter into the Collective's consciousness. The Queen would learn of our sanctuary. How do you think she would react to knowing we had found a way to be individuals again? Would she allow us to continue visiting here?"

The group fell silent. They all knew the answer to Axum's questions, but Laura was the one who finally put their common perception into words. "If even one drone does not act according to her absolute dictates, it is destroyed immediately. Think about how she would react to finding out there is a place where some of her subjects can actually think for themselves again, as individuals. It wouldn't matter to her that they number only one millionth of her entire complement of drones, or that they forget about this place and cannot act as independent beings when they are awake. The ability to make any decisions at all, no matter how impossible to implement, would be a threat to her total control of the Collective. She would not tolerate it."

No one had anything more to say on this subject. Laura had said it all.

=/\=

The war against Species 8472 was going very badly. Whenever anyone appeared in Unimatrix Zero, the news was bad. In one area of the galaxy, the enemy had destroyed so many Borg vessels, a broad corridor existed through territory that the Borg had claimed for so long, the biological components of all of the drones who had established this sovereignty were no longer functioning. One day, three of the individuals visiting Unimatrix Zero disappeared without warning, all at once, and never returned again.

Amid such grim news, even a tidbit that had nothing at all to do with the war with Species 8472 was greeted with pleasure. A vessel was flying through the edge of the corridor which had not originated with any of the races known to inhabit that part of space. One day, when Laura appeared, she shared her news with Korok, Axum, Annika, and Kuruun. "There's a Starfleet vessel in the Delta Quadrant!"

"What is the Delta Quadrant?" Axum asked.

"The Klingon Empire and the Federation have divided this galaxy, which they have named the Milky Way, into four quadrants. They use an ancient language of humans to identify each one," Korok explained. The Klingon Empire is in the Beta Quadrant. The Alpha Quadrant contains the original planets of the Vulcans and the Terrans. Annika, you are human. Your people came from Terra, or Earth, which is the home of the Federation. The Gamma and Delta Quadrants are both very far from the homes of the Klingon Empire and the Federation. When I was assimilated at Wolf 359, none of our people or their allies possessed technology which could carry them all the way here. Although . . . how is it you were assimilated, Annika? Until the Battle of Wolf 359, no human had ever traveled where the Borg reigned."

Annika looked at Axum. If not for him, she would not know the answer to this question. It would have been so deeply buried within the Collective memory, she would have found it difficult to find it, but he remembered her first day in Unimatrix Zero and knew the story as well as she did. She nodded to him, and he answered Korok. "Annika's parents were studying the Borg. Somehow, they had heard a people called the Borg existed. Eventually, they found a cube and followed it as it traveled deep into this Delta Quadrant."

"And we followed it for so long, the Borg discovered us and assimilated us," Annika finished in a tight voice. So many of her memories of that day had been lost; she'd been so little when it happened. The attack by the drone who assimilated her, however, was burned into her memory.

"Is that when the Borg Queen learned of the Federation, and brought her to attack the star system the peoples of the Federation called Wolf 359?" Korok asked gruffly.

"No, Korok," Kuruun said. "She decided to attack the Federation after a ridiculous specimen from the Q Continuum, who are so erratic they're considered to be unworthy of assimilation, brought a Starfleet vessel called the _Enterprise_ to this quadrant to confront a Borg vessel. This Q person returned the Starfleet vessel to its own space afterwards, but the Queen was intrigued. She sent vessels to that region to explore its resources. When the _Enterprise_ investigated a planet after its technology had been assimilated, the Queen decided to capture and assimilate its captain. She planned to make him her spokesperson and gave him a special designation, Locutus. He was to proclaim to the peoples of the Federation the joys of becoming one with the Collective mind - and having their biological parts melded with the mechanical."

"I know of this Captain Jean-Luc Picard! He is . . . _was_ an honorable warrior?"

"Once he was assimilated, he was only Locutus, One of One of his own solitary Unimatrix. The crew of his ship retrieved him from the cube that had taken him; but the Queen's link lasted long enough for her to learn his secrets. That is what led to her forces winning a great victory at the Battle of Wolf 359. She added the distinctiveness of hundreds of Starfleet's finest to the Borg as a result of that action, among them, our Laura Spengler, and you, Korok, when you came to the battle to fight with honor."

Korok sat down heavily. He'd fought with honor, but he had no honor now. He was a prisoner who had suffered the ignobility of defeat. Instead of dying with glory and going to Sto-Vo-Kor, he had been assimilated and forced to live a half-life as a drone in the service of his captors.

Axum asked Kuruun, "If you know this, why isn't it part of the Collective's memories?"

"I'd been coming to Unimatrix Zero for years when it happened. You had been, too, Axum. I brought knowledge of it here with me when it happened, and I've retained the memory whenever I _am_ here. When I am Six of Ten, tertiary adjunct of Unimatrix 824, I do not remember it. The memory of Locutus was deleted from the Hive mind."

"Why, Kuruun?" Annika asked.

"After the crew of the _Enterprise_ managed to recapture their captain, Locutus was returned to individuality and to his life as Jean-Luc Picard. This precedent rankles the Queen. She would prefer to keep her failure to maintain her hold on him from the rest of the Collective, until she can assimilate him again someday - when she can assimilate all the rest of Starfleet and the beings they protect, along with all of the Federation's allies and enemies."

Laura said, "The Federation and its allies, like the Klingon Empire, will not be overcome easily. Accomplishing this will require more drones. More vessels. More advanced technology. More, more, more. This may be one reason she lusts so for Species 8472 to come under her sway. She undoubtedly believes they could provide her with the way to accomplish this."

"She will wish to assimilate this little ship that's so far away from its home," Axum speculated.

"She will - if she can," Laura replied. "Jean-Luc Picard is a formidable captain. If this ship is so far from home and has survived thus far, that captain must be formidable, as well."

=/\=

Here in the far reaches of what is designated the Delta Quadrant, as the memories of Picard and the other officers and crew assimilated at Wolf 359 disclosed to the Queen, a lone little ship wandered through space, well within territory the Borg has claimed for its own - even if it is having trouble keeping it now, thanks to Species 8472. This ship could not possibly defend itself against the full power of a Borg cube; but assimilating its crew, while it could be easily accomplished, was not necessarily the best course of action to take. How much more data could these denizens of the Alpha Quadrant provide the Borg than had already been gained through the assimilations at Wolf 359? Perhaps another strategy would produce a more satisfying result.

Species 5618 was the most likely race to make up the bulk of this ship's crew. The Borg Queen possessed drones who were originally human. One in particular, whose Unimatrix 01 inhabited a cube not far from the Starfleet vessel's current position, possessed the qualities which would lend themselves to the Borg Queen's purposes. She'd been a mere child when she was assimilated and had spent years inside a maturation chamber receiving indoctrination into the ways of the Borg. She'd already proven herself to be close to perfection as a drone. She'd willingly submitted herself for reassimilation. Hadn't she also forcibly returned three other drones to the Collective after they'd been accidentally severed from the Hive mind?

Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01 was the perfect choice for what the Queen had in mind. For now, this plan would remain known to the Queen alone. Seven of Nine, Tertirary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01, would be the one to deliver the Federation, its allies, and its enemies into the eternal embrace of the Collective. All the Queen had to do was put her in the path of Starfleet. Jean-Luc Picard would have salvaged the girl. This other captain will do the same.

=/\=


	10. Disconnected

=/\=

Axum rushed over to her as soon as she appeared in Unimatrix Zero." Annika, finally! I was worried. You're late. The invasion may be failing. Another whole unit of the largest tactical cubes was destroyed by the bioships. I was . . . I was afraid you were on one of them."

"I'm here, so I wasn't, but my Unimatrix has been given a new assignment. The Queen sent our cube to intersect with the human ship Laura told us about. Starfleet's _Voyager_. It's trying to get back home to the Federation, but the Queen wants them to help us fight Species 8472."

"Be careful, Annika."

"You don't need to be frightened for me."

"I would be frightened if the Queen sent you anywhere with only your Unimatrix to protect you."

"Don't worry. We may not be as strong against Species 8472 as the Queen expected, but I'm sure we're a match for Species 5618. I'm one of them!"

Axum wrapped her in his arms. He didn't like this. Why would the Queen single Annika out like this? She was human, true. Perhaps that was the reason.

But he didn't trust the Queen. How could anyone, when she cared so little for her drones?

=/\=

The next time they were in Unimatrix Zero together, Annika told Axum, "Janeway is trouble. She refuses to be linked to the Collective. The Queen has designated me to be a spokesperson for the Borg, like she tried to do with Locutus. Captain Janeway insists upon communicating verbally. It was difficult to recall the speech I used with my parents, but I have done so. Maybe it's better she isn't linked with the Collective. We haven't told her everything. The Queen ordered me to tell her Species 8472 invaded Dry Space."

"That secret will not hold forever," Axum told her. "What will Janeway do when she finds out the Borg invaded Fluidic Space? That we tried to assimilate them, and they're only defending themselves?"

She couldn't answer. Even though Annika had just arrived in Unimatrix Zero, she abruptly disappeared again to return to the "real," to her cubicle in Cargo Bay Two - inside _Voyager_.

=/\=

Axum waited for her to come back, to let him know all was well. He waited. And he waited, and waited. He looked for her in all the settlements around Unimatrix Zero, but Annika was nowhere to be found. Just like her mother Erin, who had disappeared years before, Annika was gone.

Eventually, word filtered back to Unimatrix Zero that Annika had not perished. She was alive, on the ship called _Voyager_. Laura couldn't recall this particular spacecraft. She presumed it was a new one, built after her assimilation. She learned its captain's name from data retained in the Collective. When she returned to Unimatrix Zero, Laura could remember meeting and being very impressed by the woman who commanded the ship. Lieutenant Kathryn Janeway was the daughter of a Starfleet admiral. Laura told Axum, "The young officer I met was talented, ambitious, and very competent. If anyone can preserve Annika's life fighting Species 8472 - or the Queen - Kathryn Janeway can do it."

Axum was relieved his love wasn't dead in the 'real' - for all the good that did him. She was as good as dead to Axum.

He continued to visit Unimatrix Zero. He conversed with Laura, Kuruun, Korok, and the others who came there. He did his best to pretend he was the same Axum he'd always been. To those who had known him when he was with Annika, however, it was perfectly clear that he _wasn't_ the same Axum. Instead of a sanctuary, Unimatrix Zero had become the cruel reminder of a love he'd lost. Unless the Borg assimilated her again - something he had no wish to have happen, in spite of how miserable he felt without her - he had no hope of ever seeing his Annika again.

=/\=

Seven of Nine, who had been disconnected from the Collective by Captain Kathryn Janeway, lost all recollection of the sanctuary of the Borg which she once possessed the ability to visit, one of only one in a million drones that could. She had no memory of Unimatrix Zero, or what she loved about it. The insights she'd gained about humanity from Laura Spengler, who had been a lieutenant commander on the _USS Kyushu_ , were washed away.

Perhaps Seven of Nine was fortunate she _didn't_ remember what had been the most precious aspect of her life as a Borg: Annika's love for Axum. It had been erased from her mind. Once her link with the Collective was broken, her mind could no longer visit the Borg's sanctuary whenever she regenerated. Since she had never known about Axum when she woke up as a Borg drone, she couldn't remember him when she was awake on _Voyager_ , either. Her initial compulsion to return to the Borg might have been fueled by a subliminal wish to retrieve an unknown something that she'd lost. On _Voyager_ , Seven of Nine would regenerate without any refreshing sojourns to Unimatrix Zero.

She would have to relearn what it was to be human all over again, with the initial emotional age of a child, since she had been only six during her last moments as an individual. She would have to struggle to understand the ramifications of adjusting to life as a person who lived only in her own mind, and within a body that had been changed radically by time, and even further, through surgery. She was no longer completely Borg, but she wasn't totally human, either. Somehow, she must discover how to act and how to relate to the other individuals on _Voyager,_ whether openly hostile or seemingly accepting.

Most importantly, she must learn who this new being, Seven of Nine, really was.

=/\=


	11. Adapting to the New

=/\=

Captain Kathryn Janeway had suggested Seven of Nine use her birth name Annika Hansen. Without being conscious of the reason, Seven had formed an aversion to that name and refused to consider it; but she was willing to truncate her full Borg name to simply, "Seven." While the captain may have been someone disappointed by this choice, she accepted it from someone who wasn't used to making any sort of decision for herself at all. The captain encouraged Seven to regain her humanity through art and play, when it was Seven's natural inclination to work at tasks, regenerate, and repeat, or as she put it, to use her time efficiently. She clung to her Borg persona, but within the parameters of life with individuals from many genetic backgrounds.

Relations with Commander Chakotay, Janeway's first officer, were difficult from the beginning. He'd executed the other eight of Unimatrix 01 assigned with her to _Voyager_ by shooting them out of an airlock. He fought Captain Janeway when she'd been open to cooperating with the Borg. Once Janeway learned of the Queen's duplicity, she was livid, but she didn't hold it against Seven of Nine. She blamed the Queen, kindling an enmity which would inflame both of them throughout _Voyager's_ flight through the Delta Quadrant.

The photonic Doctor treated her injuries and removed the implants she no longer needed now that she was no longer completely Borg. He restored her appearance to that of an attractive human woman, although Seven of Nine had little appreciation for beauty in herself, or anyone else, for that matter. Breathing was difficult while she was forced to wear the tight corsets and constrictive clothing the Doctor said she needed while her body healed after surgery. It was a relief when she was able to don other clothing that was less restrictive, although Seven continued to require a corset for years. Luckily, it wasn't as tight as the initial one. It never occurred to her that the Doctor might have made certain choices about her appearance because he was personally attracted to her. It was years before she learned he'd fallen in love with his personal Galatea.

She did recognize how her new appearance invited unwanted attention from others even though her priority was to perform tasks efficiently, without interference. Ensign Kim made his attraction all too obvious. On one level, she was aware that she should be flattered by his interest, but she simply wasn't attracted to him in the same way he was to her. When they worked together on assignments, however, Seven was able to appreciate the ensign's ability to work with her, even after she physically attacked him. Harry Kim was one who did accept her as she was.

Other crew members made their resentment about her presence very clear. While Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres was particularly hostile, the man with whom the Klingon/human hybrid enjoyed a romantic relationship, Thomas Paris, offered to help Seven adjust to her life on _Voyager_. Eventually she learned that Lieutenant Paris had been hated by virtually everyone on the ship when _Voyager_ first arrived in the Delta Quadrant. While the fact that he was the lover of the very irascible Lieutenant Torres prevented Seven from taking him up on his offer at first, as she might otherwise have done, she did appreciate the fact that he'd tendered it to her at all.

The easiest one to deal with, surprisingly, was the Vulcan Tactical and Security Officer, Tuvok, who was a Lieutenant when she arrived on _Voyager_ but was promoted to Lieutenant Commander shortly afterwards. He was older, worked efficiently at his tasks, and, because of his species, was able to control his emotions and concentrate on helping her to correct any errors she made instead of berating her for them, as Chakotay or Torres were wont to do. His lack of an emotional reaction to her presence was gratifying. Gradually, over time, he became her mentor. He taught her as much about Starfleet protocols and procedures as she was willing to absorb.

The representative of Species 218, a native of the Delta Quadrant, was a curious person who served many functions on _Voyager._ His exuberance could be trying, and his love of exotic spices, which found their way into the food Neelix cooked for the crew, made his meal offerings difficult for many of them to appreciate - or to digest. When Seven's body returned to one that was primarily biological, rather than mechanical, in nature, requiring she ingest food in addition to spending time regenerating, she had so much difficulty with his menu, she often resorted to consuming replicated nutritional supplements prescribed by the Doctor, rather than risk eating anything the genial chef had prepared.

Neelix's friend Kes was Ocampan, a race without a species designation, as far as Seven could tell from her Collective memories. The Ocampa lived under the surface of their homeworld, and apart from a very a small group residing on a space station some light years away, nowhere else. The Borg must never have encountered them. Seven had little chance to interact with this person, however. Shortly after Seven arrived on _Voyager_ , Kes evolved into a creature of light and energy. During the process, she bestowed a gift. Kes exerted sufficient power to thrust _Voyager_ far out of Borg space, which was being hotly contested by the Borg and Species 8472 at the time. When she observed this unique ability, which suggested the Ocampa might have the potential to provide the Borg a weapon against Species 8472, Seven was pleased the Collective had apparently overlooked the species. She wasn't sure why.

When Seven had been on the ship for approximately one standard Federation year, she encountered a child who'd been born on _Voyager_ long after it was lost in the Delta Quadrant. At first Naomi Wildman was terrified of the "Borg Lady," but eventually, she accepted the presence of this strange human, who had metal parts emerging from the skin on her face and other places hidden by clothing, too. Naomi's mother Samantha told her daughter that Seven reminded her of a human child of six or seven. Naomi, a Ktarian/Human hybrid, was barely half that age, but she related to the crew far more easily than Seven did for a very long time.

Apart from the crew, Seven had to endure encounters with alien races, such as the Cataati, who wished to blame her for all their ills. Since she was the only representative of the Borg available, they wanted to punish her for what the Collective as a whole had done to them. Other aliens were more accepting, perhaps because they had never encountered any of the Borg.

Over time she adapted, although life on _Voyager_ was often more upsetting than comfortable for her or for the rest of the crew, for that matter. Once they encountered a space station made in the image of Starfleet Headquarters, but which was actually an outpost of Species 8472. A "Think Tank" abducted her and tried to keep her prisoner, until the captain rescued her. She uncovered evidence of conspiracies and memories of being abused, both of which turned out to be false. A visit to a spatial anomaly introduced her to the corpse of a human who had died while on one of mankind's earliest missions to another planet in Earth's solar system. She suffered the pain of loss when an unprecedented chain of events resulted in the birth of a futuristic drone "son," who sacrificed his life to prevent a Borg ship from capturing him and assimilating his 29th century technology. The Hirogen; deadly nebulas; starship-eating pitcher plants in space; regions of space so fouled with radiation, even a Borg vessel would not have attempted to cross it; Captain Rudy Ransom and his first officer Maxwell Burke of the _Equinox_ : she faced them all, sometimes when she was basically on her own.

And the Borg. Was the Queen following _Voyager_ through the Delta Quadrant, waiting for the opportunity to strike? If so, what was she waiting for? As Seven of Nine became more accustomed and comfortable with being referred to only as Seven, she began to wonder about this, because time after time, _Voyager_ and its crew ran into the Borg in some manner, yet the Collective was unable - or unwilling - to assimilate the ship.

=/\=


	12. Memories of the Borg

=/\=

Over time, her memories of her parents and the epic journey they had taken to investigate stories about the mechanized race of beings called the Borg, which had been considered mere folk tales designed to frighten young children or the gullible, had faded from her conscious memory. When Seven began to experience strange, disturbing dreams of big black birds flying at her, with Borg marching menacingly towards her, the Doctor classified them as nightmares and dismissed them. The captain recognized Seven's confusion and dismay, however, and tried to comfort her. When a resurgence of these images occurred in the mess hall when she was attempting to eat her first true meal, however, new implants began to erupt from her skin. Seven physically attacked Neelix and stole a shuttlecraft. She was certain the Borg wanted her to rejoin them and were calling to her via a homing beacon frequency. Unfortunately, her path led into the region of space claimed by the B'omar, an aggressive species of aliens who were reluctant to allow transit through their territory. They imposed strict rules that were to be followed to the letter - if permission should even be granted. Seven, of course, had no permission and broke all of their rules.

When Tuvok and Tom Paris followed her, she fired on their shuttle and held Tuvok captive on hers (which also broke the rules). Tuvok questioned Seven about why she'd taken the shuttle. When she told him she was being summoned by those she considered her people, he surmised something else might be going on. He convinced her to let him accompany her to the place she thought she would meet the Borg and would be reassimilated.

That place turned out to be the wreckage of her parents' ship, _The Raven_. It rested on a desolate moon deep inside B'omar space. A beacon had been activated when Seven passed near enough for it to detect her Borg cortical array, causing the dreams of mechanical beings and the big black bird - a raven, which her biological brain conjured up from her childhood memories to serve as a nightmarish representation of the name of the vessel.

Tuvok filled his tricorder with data from _The Raven's_ computer core before the B'omar began to fire on the wreckage. Captain Janeway broke more of the B'omar's stuffy rules by taking out their weaponry in order to save Tuvok , Seven, and Tom Paris (and the two precious shuttles, which necessitated a plethora of materiel whenever the shuttle building crew had to construct a replacement). The hoped-for shortcut through B'omar space was abandoned. When Seven returned to the ship, the Doctor adjusted her cortical array so that she would no longer be subject to responding to a mere homing beacon. A more powerful piece of Borg machinery, however, would still have the ability to disrupt her functioning, which would not be known until the following year.

In the meantime, with Tuvok's help, as well as the captain's, she pieced together what those "bad dreams" really meant. Reflecting upon what her life might have been like if she had been raised by her parents and never assimilated by the Borg lent her perspective on why she hadn't been willing to accept the name her parents had given her. Annika Hansen had been a victim of the Borg. Seven refused to be anyone's victim - _especially_ of the Borg. From this time on, while she still identified closely with the Collective in her outlook and behavior in her daily life, she had no desire to be reassimilated.

=/\=

Although Seven of Nine didn't want to be reassimilated, her past as a Borg came back to haunt her from time to time. When _Voyager_ passed near a debris field, the remains of a destroyed Borg vessel she "caught" an illness much like the mental condition known as multiple personality disorder. She exhibited the behaviors of individuals who had been assimilated by the Borg before her separation from the Collective, from neural patterns stored within her cortical implants. A virus introduced by Species 6339 into a viniculum from a destroyed Borg vessel was the cause. Most of the species had been assimilated by the Borg, and they wanted to take their vengeance on any and all Borg by infecting them with this virus. It came close to killing her. She was saved by Tuvok, who instituted a mind meld to retrieve her own neural pattern from the mix, restore it to primacy, and force the others into a dormant state.

While creating serious problems for Seven at the time, one of the personalities was that of a child who was eager to play games with Naomi Wildman. When Seven recovered, she went to Naomi to provide here with materials to help the child achieve her goal of becoming the "captain's assistant." She also asked Naomi if she would teach the game Kadis-kot to her. Naomi lost her fear of the "Borg Lady." Since Naomi knew more about being a friend and behaving appropriately to others than Seven had learned to this point, their friendship blossomed into an important relationship bringing great rewards to them both.

=/\=


	13. The Heist

=/\=

It really was a very good plan. Even Seven agreed that the potential for success was high. The scout ship was small and not particularly well armed by the Borg. _Voyager_ was easily a match for its weaponry. If it could be disabled, several dozen more drones besides Seven of Nine might be disconnected from the Collective and returned to individuality, while _Voyager's_ crew might obtain the Holy Grail of Starfleet, or, at the very least, of Captain Kathryn Janeway. If they gained possession of a functioning transwarp coil, Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres and Seven believed they should be able to adapt it to _Voyager's_ systems and create a transwarp conduit. As a result, the path home to the Alpha Quadrant might take little more than half the number of years to traverse than current projections indicated.

Location, location, location. It was as important a consideration for the placement of explosive devices as it was when real estate salesmen of past centuries wanted to sell a home to a customer at the highest possible price.

Place your exploding photon torpedo too close to the main power matrix of a vessel, and "BOOM!" The debris from the explosion had a tendency to be microscopic in size, rather than big enough to be truly useful to the crew of _Voyager_. Some of the trash was retrievable, but the drones who'd operated the scout vessel were not. They were all quite dead. The only thing left of any value from them was the arm of a medical drone, which the Doctor claimed could revolutionize the way he did surgery. Or, as Tom Paris drolly said in passing, "No Federation sickbay should be without one."

Seven and B'Elanna Torres managed to salvage what was left of a transwarp coil, but it had been twisted into garbage by the self-destruct sequence that followed the explosion. The Borg knew how desirable that particular part would be for anyone daring enough to try to abscond with one. Only a transwarp coil from an undamaged ship would do. When the captain was told this, her next decision was fairly predictable.

They were going to find a Borg vessel and relieve it of its transwarp coil. While Commander Chakotay wasn't a fan of this particular plan, his ability to sway his captain from her course was also predictable. He couldn't.

When a Borg sphere damaged by an ion storm was identified nearby, limping along while its drones were busy repairing its systems, the plan was considered doable. They'd need to plan out how to accomplish their goal to the tiniest detail, diligently practicing every step of the heist before an attempt could be made. Every bit of data they had at their disposal would be evaluated in order to increase their chance of success. While the data nodes they'd recovered from the exploded scout ship contained much of value, including current tactical information, another source was available. Personal logs and records retrieved from her parents' vessel _The Raven_ now rested within _Voyager's_ computer memory, courtesy of Commander Tuvok.

When Captain Janeway suggested Seven review the records to assist in their project, at first, she refused. After the captain said she'd assign the task to Commander Chakotay instead, Seven insisted those records belonged to her. She must be the one to read them.

Her initial misgivings were understandable. The expedition to _The Raven_ had dredged up childhood memories she'd wished had remained forever buried, and this project promised to do the same. In the end, it became an even greater ordeal. Seven would never again be able to think of her parents, particularly her father, without overwhelming feelings of anger and betrayal.

Her hatred of the Borg Queen increased exponentially. Seven of Nine, the Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01, would never willingly return to the Borg after this incident was over.

=/\=

Seven's research into her parents' logs from _The Raven_ revealed they'd developed a form of cloaking technology, which hid her father's presence whenever he visited the cube to take detailed notes about life as a Borg. If he'd ever had the chance to write a scholarly dissertation on his findings, he would undoubtedly have been the recipient of a great deal of adulation, perhaps even prizes, for his unique discoveries. To the people of the Federation at the time, the Borg were no more than a myth. If the Hansens had returned to the Alpha Quadrant with their discoveries, proving that the Borg were no myth, Starfleet could have been warned of the existence of a powerful new enemy long before Captain Picard and his crew on the _Enterprise_ obtained hard evidence of the Hive. Would the Battle at Wolf 359 have proven to be as disastrous as it was to the Federation if they'd done this? Starfleet may have been able to develop better defenses, since the need to modulate frequencies because of the way the Borg constantly adapted to weapons fire would have been known well in advance of that confrontation.

Seven became even more upset when she learned her mother Erin had wanted her husband to end their study and return to the Alpha Quadrant before the Borg discovered them. Magnus Hansen wasn't willing to give up his work. He wanted to record more facts about this new race before he'd acquiesce to his wife's pleading. The fact that he had a small daughter whose future might be compromised if he went on in his headstrong way didn't seem to faze him in the least.

His wife had been right. He'd been wrong. The Borg turned on them. Annika Hansen became Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01 until Captain Janeway and the crew of _Voyager_ freed her from the Hive.

As the plans to raid the sphere proceeded, the Hansens' design for their bio-dampener shielding system was utilized to build cloaking units for the _Voyager_ attack team. Seven exhibited some reluctance to join the team at first. Suddenly, her attitude changed, and she demanded to be allowed to participate in "Operation Fort Knox." The captain approved, thinking Seven's commitment to the action would increase their chances of success.

The team was successful in "liberating" a transwarp coil. All but one of the team managed to get back to _Voyager_ safely. The one who didn't was Seven of Nine.

=/\=


	14. Mommy and Daddy Issues

=/\=

Seven had never revealed to Captain Janeway that the Borg Queen had invaded her neural transceiver and told her she was aware of the plans to invade the sphere. The Queen would spare _Voyager_ \- if Seven agreed to rejoin the Collective. If she didn't return, the heist would fail. As far as the away team knew, Seven had defected back to the Borg. The true reason she left was only discovered after a close examination of the ship's sensor logs, which showed the Queen had been in contact with her former subject.

As the captain said to Naomi, when the girl came to her ready room with her own plan to save Seven, "a captain never abandons a member of the crew."

While Seven was a captive of the Borg Queen in the Unicomplex, the Queen forced her to come along on an excursion to help her assimilate Species 10026. Seven was sickened when she helped perform a task she'd previously accomplished without any qualms, when she had no will to refuse. She managed to help a handful of the species to escape: four, out of a population of 392,000. When the Queen detected the escape, Seven told her it would be an "inefficient use of resources" to recover such a small number of potential drones. They escaped the Borg, but where they would find sanctuary, it was impossible to know.

When they returned to the Unicomplex, the Queen decided upon a new task for Seven. She was ordered to assist in developing a new way to assimilate "resistant" species. A biogenic bomb detonated in a planet's atmosphere would release nanoprobe viruses that would gradually assimilate the population. No one would realize what was happening until half the population was well along the way to assimilation. The Queen's proposed target: Earth.

When Seven tried to resist, the Queen unveiled another ploy. She brought in a drone who looked very familiar to Seven of Nine. This drone once was Magnus Hansen, Seven's father, one of billions of drones, who would have no compunctions about assimilating anyone - even his own daughter. He no longer had any free will and couldn't do otherwise, if so ordered by the Queen of the Borg Collective.

Using technology invented by the Hansens, Captain Janeway, Tuvok, Tom Paris, and the Doctor infiltrated the Unicomplex where the Queen was holding Seven. A tussle of wills commenced over the body and the soul of Seven of Nine. The captain won. Seven was whisked away in the Delta Flyer, with three Borg vessels and the Borg Queen's yacht in hot pursuit. The Flyer had been fitted with the stolen transwarp coil and created a transwarp conduit to make their getaway, but the Borg Queen's yacht slipped inside the conduit and followed them.

When the Delta Flyer exited the conduit and approached _Voyager's_ position, the captain ordered Commander Chakotay to fire weapons at the end of the conduit. The assault closed the conduit, but a minute later it opened again. The remnants of the Queen's yacht tumbled out into space. An adventure that began with a debris field ended with one as well.

Was the drone who had been Magnus Hansen on that yacht when it was destroyed? Was the Queen? What about Seven's mother? Was she one of the drones in the Unicomplex, or was she long gone? Seven didn't know the answers to those questions. She was pleased that Captain Janeway had come for her after Seven had seemingly gone back to the Borg of her own volition, but the facts she'd learned about her early life evoked memories that were anything but pleasant.

=/\=

After Seven spent a total of 48 uninterrupted hours regenerating, she went to one of the crew to talk with him about what had happened. "You once said that if I ever needed to talk with someone to adjust to life on _Voyager_ , I could come to you. I haven't ever taken advantage of that offer before. If you're still willing, I would like to talk with you now."

"Of course, Seven. If I can help, I will. I'll certainly listen," Ensign Thomas Paris replied.

"I have heard that your relationship with your own father has not always . . . been easy."

"That's one way to put it," he said, laughing derisively. "An extremely accurate way, I'd say."

"I am finding it difficult to accept how my parents were so careless with me. They put their pursuit of knowledge over their daughter's safety, and as a result, I spent eighteen years as a Borg drone . . ." For almost an hour, the ensign, who had been demoted the previous year from the rank of lieutenant because of his own mistakes, listened as the entire story tumbled out. She seemed to have finished her tirade when she added, "I withheld one detail of what the Queen told me from Captain Janeway. The Queen claimed that she meant for the captain to disconnect me from the Collective. She placed me here so that I would betray _Voyager_ \- and humanity. I don't know if the development of the biogenic weapon was the betrayal, or if she still intends to use me in some other way. I may be a threat to everyone as long as I remain on this vessel."

Tom sat in silence for a short time before asking, "Do you believe her?"

"What do you mean?" Seven replied.

"Did you believe the Queen when she said she wanted the captain to break your link with the Collective? I mean, maybe she did, although when I think about everything that went down at the time, I find it hard to believe she could have anticipated every detail well enough to get the outcome she wanted. Chakotay would have been ecstatic if he'd succeeded in blowing you out of the airlock with the rest of your Unimatrix. You were lucky you survived. And when the Hirogen hunters captured you and Tuvok and almost turned you into stew for their lunch, did she take that into consideration?"

"I don't believe she was involved in that incident in any way," Seven agreed.

"I'm sure she wasn't. And the B'omar could have destroyed you on that moon when you went back to the wreckage of your parents' ship, or your mind could have been completely destroyed when Species 633 . . . I forget the rest of that species designation . . . "

"When I was infected by the virus in the viniculum? That was Species 6339."

"Right. Thank you. My point is, your usefulness as a spy or whatever could _easily_ have ended there, too. If the Borg Queen is as devious as she seems to be, I would think she'd have arranged things a little better to insure your survival. I admit, if that _was_ something she'd planned, it explains why we've managed to get out of trouble from the Borg on a couple of occasions when they could have caught us if they'd pursued us more aggressively."

"You believe the Queen lied to me?"

"What do you think?"

"She is _capable_ of lying. As you said, she is very devious. Heartless and cold. Selfish. She called my emotional response to the destruction of Species 10026 'petty,' but her anger and hatred of humanity, and of Captain Janeway in particular, are very obvious. She has 'petty' emotions of her own. She's always been our enemy, but now, more than ever. I rejected her. She will never forgive me for that, or the captain, for rescuing me from her."

Tom said, "I can't argue with that conclusion, Seven. We know she'll keep on pursuing our captain as long as both of them are alive. But I don't think your rejection really changed much of anything. She's hated humanity ever since Jean-Luc 'Locutus' Picard escaped her clutches."

"That's true. She's tried to assimilate humanity with direct assaults on two occasions, she said, and those failures exasperate her. She's obsessed with assimilating the entire species. When she took me with her to assimilate Species 10026, she wanted me to 'practice,' to learn to obey her and do whatever she wanted me to, even though she hadn't returned me to the Hive mind."

"You're stuck between the Queen and our captain. Neither will ever give up until the other is dealt with permanently. Mommy problems, as well as Daddy issues, I'd say."

Seven tilted up her left brow. "You have an unusual way of expressing uncomfortable truths," she observed. "How have you dealt with your 'Daddy and Mommy issues,' Ensign Paris."

"I can't say I do have 'Mommy issues,' Seven, unless it's with Captain Janeway. My own mother is great. Not perfect, any more than anyone else is, but she always seemed to understand where I was coming from and take it into account. My father and I haven't seen eye-to-eye forever, it seems, but when I look back on it now, I was as much to blame as he was. I relished being the thorn in his side. He didn't take that any better than I did trying to live up to his expectations. He never seemed to get that what he wanted from me was really too much for a little kid."

"A 'thorn in the side?'" she asked quizzically. "Clarify."

"A thorn sticking in your side would cause a very sharp pain there," he said, chuckling.

"I understand the allusion now. You're saying you were just as imperfect as he was?"

"You must have noticed how I achieved my spiffy new rank of ensign, thanks to my recent accomplishments on Monea. Not to mention my thirty day vacation in the brig. I'm the poster child for imperfect. Perfection is impossible. And the Borg Queen's idea of perfection seems to be that everyone has to do whatever she wants without giving her any lip - that means objecting to any of her plans. She believes she's perfection personified, right?"

"Yes, that's right." She sighed. "I've tried to achieve perfection, but I've never been able to attain it. I believe I saw it once when the Omega . . . but we're not supposed to talk about that."

"No, we're not," the ensign said with a laugh.

"But there are many _ways_ to be imperfect, and some are much more damaging than others. Your father's expectations of you, which you believed were unrealistic, didn't put you in jeopardy of assimilation. I can never forgive my father for that, especially now that I know my mother tried to dissuade him from continuing his pursuit of the Borg - and he ignored her."

Tom quietly responded, "I can't argue that point with you."

After a short pause, Seven realized she didn't have anything more to discuss with him. He'd done exactly what she'd asked of him. He'd listened to what she had to say and answered her questions with as much honesty as he could. She had much to mull over before she regenerated. She thanked Tom for taking the time to speak with her, adding, "I hope I haven't created difficulties for you in your relationship with Lieutenant Torres."

"Don't worry about that. B'Elanna's got Mommy and Daddy issues of her own. She knows what happened on _The Raven_ , and she also knows you were just 'introduced' to your father, the Borg Queen's pet drone. I can make her understand that you came to me because you needed someone to talk to about it. It's too bad you don't have a really close friend of your own to go to when you need to unburden yourself. You were getting on fairly well with Harry for a while . . ."

"Ensign Kim is continuing to feel the effects of the disease he contracted during his ill-fated affair with the Varro woman," Seven reminded him.

"That's true. He still glows a little every now and then. I suppose it's when he's remembering her. You could try the Doc, of course, but then you'd have to put up with him putting in his own two cents . . . I mean, he'd give you tons of advice, some of it good, and some not so good, whether you wanted any of it or not."

"You are correct. I should consider finding someone associate with on an ongoing basis - other than Naomi. I enjoy our time together, but she wouldn't be an appropriate individual for me to speak with on subjects such as this. But your idea about developing a close friendship with someone has merit." Seven took her leave from Ensign Paris.

As she walked back to Cargo Bay Two, Seven found herself thinking more about the very last part of her discussion with Ensign Paris. If she'd ever had anyone she could speak with about her problems, or her joys, for that matter, she couldn't recall who it could have been. She'd been an individual for approximately eight years of her life. Her Borg existence had lasted for eighteen. She couldn't have had any discussions such as this during that period of time! Borg drones couldn't communicate at all in this manner. However, perhaps it was time to explore another aspect of her personality.

Although Ensign Paris had cautioned her about going to the Doctor for advice, she was quite sure he would be willing to discuss the advisability of forming a friendly relationship with one of the crew. Observing the way Ensign Paris and his girlfriend Lieutenant Torres interacted with one another might be helpful as well. At the very least, collecting data about human mating behavior might divert her from constantly rehashing what she'd learned about her early history. If she stopped obsessing about it, she might not feel the intense bitterness she felt towards her father whenever she did.

He might have been in the yacht that was destroyed in the collapsing transwarp conduit. If he was, Seven felt that Magnus Hansen had brought it upon himself.

=/\=


	15. Pygmalion and Galatea

=/\=

That Lieutenant Torres might take issue with something Seven had done was hardly a new occurrence. They'd been at odds with one another from Seven's first day on _Voyager_. What was surprising on this occasion was the chief engineer's violent reaction to Seven's latest attempts at understanding interpersonal relations.

After Lieutenant Torres snatched away the PADD containing her data on human mating behavior, disrupting Seven's observations in the mess hall, the lieutenant had become increasingly incensed when she read Seven's observational notes. Once she reached the citation from Stardate 52648, she screamed at Seven, "How the **_hell_** do you know when we're having intimate relations?!"

Her response was irrefutable. "There is _no one_ on Deck Nine, Section 12 who doesn't know when you're having intimate relations."

Lieutenant Torres became so enraged, she actually threatened to break Seven's nose. Fortunately, Ensign Paris was able to thwart his paramour's attempt to carry out her threat. He pushed her away from Seven and out of the mess hall. It was disturbing, however, to see that Ensign Paris seemed as disgruntled about the data Seven had collected as Lieutenant Torres had been. At least he didn't say anything to indicate he meant to damage Seven of Nine in any way.

Clearly, Seven's study had hit a nerve.

=/\=

The captain ordered her - very nicely, but it was still an order - to cease taking what she called "field notes" on the crew. "This is a starship, not a nature preserve." The captain, just as Ensign Paris had said to Seven a few weeks previously, suggested that Seven should think about forming a relationship with a member of the crew. The captain even went a step further by suggesting a romantic relationship, noting that Seven had collected 30,000 gigaquads of data on the subject.

After giving the captain's order due consideration, Seven decided she _should_ consult with someone about forming a relationship with an individual on this ship. Needless to say, given recent events in the mess hall, it would be inadvisable for Seven to seek out Ensign Paris for advice regarding this subject.

Despite the ensign's warning that the Doctor might overload her with advice, Seven went to him. When the Doctor offered to provide Seven with lessons in appropriate social behavior, as Kes had done for him, she accepted. He scheduled the first one for that evening, on Holodeck Two.

The slide projection-heavy lecture _was_ far more detailed than Seven required. When the Doctor came to the image he identified as, "Fortress Ovum . . . besieged by countless Little Warriors," Seven called a halt to the lesson. "I _am_ familiar with the physiological processes of sexuality."

Although clearly disappointed that the first one would not be presented in its entirety, the Doctor went on with "Lesson Two - Encounter in a Public Place." After conjuring up Ensign Paris' Sandrine's tavern program, the Doctor provided Seven with a script containing lines which were almost as annoying to her as the Fortress Ovum segment of the previous lesson. When she balked at this, too, the Doctor suggested she interact with one of the holographic characters in the Sandrine's program instead of trading lines from the script with the EMH.

While Seven was very tentative when interacting with "Steven," the Doctor was thrilled at the way his student was performing. Unfortunately, at that moment Ensign Paris entered the program and was peeved when he noticed his pool table had been deleted. The Doctor invited him to stay a while. "Watch. You might _learn_ something."

The ensign did stay to watch. Even though the hologram was programmed to respond well to anything Seven said, the awkwardness of the entire scene was apparent to the helmsman, if not to the EMH. While the Doctor exulted over his pupil's rapid progress, the ensign was not impressed, particularly when Seven suddenly left the interaction, declaring that she had "mastered this exercise. We can proceed to the next."

When Ensign Paris advised the Doctor, "If I were you, I'd start looking for somebody to fill in for me," Seven considered the comment irrelevant. Unfortunately, she failed to ask the ensign what he meant by it. She was extremely unhappy when she found out.

=/\=

Over the following days, the Doctor continued to tutor Seven in dating skills. When they sang "You Are My Sunshine" together, she was too busy looking at the music and lyrics to notice the adoring way he was gazing at her. He was enthralled by her progress, unaware his view had been influenced by the rose-colored glasses perched figuratively on his nose. Pygmalion was falling in love, although Galatea was oblivious to his regard. Unfortunately, a lesson on recognizing the ways partners in a relationship expressed their emotions had not been included in the course syllabus.

=/\=

Although Ensign Kim's recovery from the disease he'd caught from Derron Tal might have been facilitated if Seven had been willing to grant him the privilege of a date or two, she didn't bother to consider him as a prospective date. This, despite knowing that in the past, he'd tolerated difficult behaviors from her without becoming unduly upset. Lieutenant William Chapman, a very efficient structural engineer who was also, as an impartial observer might notice, a very nice-looking young man, was Seven's choice. His reputation as a man who was often extremely nervous around women may never have been mentioned around Seven. If it had been, she would have discounted it as gossip, and therefore, of no consequence.

When they met for their date in Sandrines, he'd already ordered lobsters for their meal. That a food with an exoskeleton might not be particularly appealing to an ex-Borg with exoskeletal parts of her own had apparently never occurred to Chapman. She also had no idea how to eat a lobster, but gamely, she made the attempt. When she cracked hers open, pieces of the crustacean's shell and flesh flew through the air, splattering the lieutenant's face and off-duty outfit. She offered to replicate a new one for him, but Lieutenant Chapman calmly picked the pieces of shellfish off his face and clothing, and the date continued.

The incident with the lobster was only a minor inconvenience for Lieutenant Chapman. Giving up on dinner, he asked Seven to dance. It took a bit of practice, but after a while, they began to move reasonably well together. When Seven observed another couple on the dance floor twirling around each other, over and under each other's outstretched arms, she decided to try the same move. Unfortunately, she didn't warn him in advance. He ended up with a dislocated shoulder.

After Lieutenant Chapman left Sandrines to be treated by Ensign Paris in Sickbay, Seven approached the Doctor, who'd been observing her date. She told him she wished to terminate their lessons. The Doctor encouraged her to continue. "This may be a good time to cover Lesson 35: _Shall We Dance_?" he explained. He instructed the computer to play the song, "Someone to Watch Over Me," and offered himself as her partner. As he pointed out, he didn't have any ligaments that could be damaged during the exercise.

Dancing with the Doctor _was_ much more successful than her trip around the dance floor with Lieutenant Chapman. It was notably rewarding for the Doctor, as well.

=/\=

Tomin, the Kadi ambassador assigned to visit _Voyager_ to evaluate if the Starfleet crew would be satisfactory trading partners, was a monk who was expected to eschew anything that might stimulate an extreme emotional response. His order kept to a strict diet of bland food and a lifestyle devoid of wine, women, and song. Or hologram jokes. Tomin soon proved eager to experience a very different lifestyle. During his stay on _Voyager_ , he ate spicy food, cavorted with holographic alien babes, and discovered the joys of imbibing syntheholic beverages.

When Seven and the Doctor arrived at the reception that was being held in his honor, he'd already consumed far too much of everything he shouldn't have, according to the dictates of his monastery. He was, as Ensign Paris observed, ". . . so lubricated, he'll laugh at anything."

Seven offered a well phrased toast in honor of their guest. She interacted politely with everyone. All seemed to be going well that night. When Ensign Paris observed this, he conceded that the parameters of an arrangement he'd made with the Doctor had been met. "I've got to admit it," the helmsman told the Doctor, "you've done wonders. All right. You win."

"Win? Seven asked.

"I know when I'm licked. You tell me when you want me to start those double shifts."

The Doctor smiled contentedly, sure of his victory, except - "You made a wager regarding me? Clarify." Seven demanded.

"It's not what you think!" the Doctor exclaimed.

Although Ensign Paris said she shouldn't blame the Doctor, claiming the bet was his idea, Seven was not mollified. In an obviously hurt tone of voice, she said, "I believed your interest in my social development was sincere, not motivated by personal gain. Clearly, I am not the only one who requires social lessons. Thank you for a lovely evening."

When she stalked towards the door, the extremely inebriated Kadi ambassador tried to entice her into exploring "human dating rituals" with him. She was not amused. When he grabbed her to stop her from leaving, she threatened to remove his arm if he didn't release her. Outraged, Tomin yelled so loudly, the entire reception came to an abrupt halt. And then he collapsed.

The terms of the Doctor's wager with Ensign Paris were that Seven was to arrive at the party and leave with the same date; they were to be on good terms with each other when the date ended; and she would not be involved in a diplomatic incident. Seven's behavior at the reception had failed to satisfy all of these conditions, insuring Ensign Paris a full month of freedom from Sickbay duties.

The aftereffects of the incident were mitigated by Seven's willingness to modify her nanoprobes to treat Tomin for intoxication. No one had previously suspected his body would react to synthehol as violently as regular alcohol. While Seven was treating Tomin, the Doctor asked his field medic, "Mr. Paris . . . hypothetically . . . if one develops romantic feelings for another person, how does one usually go about expressing them? It's for one of Seven's social lessons."

"Ah...Well, I recommend the direct approach. Tell the person how you feel."

"What if the feelings aren't mutual?"

"Well, that's the risk you always take."

While the Doctor pondered this response, Ensign Paris added, "Why don't you _tell_ her? Come on, Doc. It's obvious the Ambassador is not the only one in this room who's intoxicated."

"She's my student!"

His field medic understood the EMH's dilemma. "A hologram and a Borg? Stranger things have happened. Just look at me and B'Elanna."

=/\=

When Tomin's superior came to the ship the following day, he said to him, "There are many distractions aboard this vessel. You didn't indulge in any of their more . . . _colorful_ traditions?"

Despite his crashing hangover, Tomin answered, "Of course not!"

Neelix told the superior that Tomin "followed the itinerary you approved to the last detail!"

The superior smiled. "Oh, what a shame. It isn't a violation to _explore_ new experiences . . . As long as you don't make a _habit_ of it."

=/\=

The next day, Seven entered Cargo Bay Two and found a dozen long-stemmed roses on the console. The Doctor followed her into the bay. He told her the flowers were a gift, congratulating her for achieving the latest phase of her social development. Seven understood the significance. "You have developed romantic feelings for me," she said softly, wonderingly.

The Doctor went on, "It's as if you've become a part of my program. When we're apart, I feel like I'm missing a subroutine! I don't expect you to reciprocate, but I wanted you to know how I feel."

When a door chime sounded, however, the Doctor quickly said, "Computer, end program."

Seven - the real one - walked into the holodeck and handed him a medical tricorder. She'd modified it to increase its scanning resolution by 33%, since he'd mentioned he desired a more efficient instrument. The giving of a gift had been mentioned in Lesson 22 - _"Thanks for the Memories."_ The lessons were definitely being terminated. "It's obvious there are no potential mates for me aboard this vessel."

When Seven reminded the Doctor he'd indicated he had something to say to her, too, he bravely replied, "I just wanted to say . . . the past few days . . . have been unforgettable. Thank you."

The Doctor never did learn if she heard the song he chose to play on the piano when she walked out of the holodeck. It was the same one he'd chosen for them to dance to in Sandrines, after her date with Lieutenant Chapman had ended so badly.

The song was "Someone to Watch Over Me."

If she did hear, the significance of his choice eluded her.

=/\=


	16. Marika, Lansor, and P'Chan

=/\=

Not long after Seven's unsatisfactory foray into exploring romantic relationships, another encounter with the Borg brought with it a very specific and painful reminder of her actions when she was a drone.

 _Voyager_ reached a space station that, for once, seemed happy to meet visitors from the other side of the galaxy. Amid crowds of visitors who came on board the vessel to meet and greet the crew while the crew were doing much the same thing on the station, three individuals came on board seeking Seven of Nine. Two of Nine, Three of Nine, and Four of Nine, the other survivors of the scout ship crash eight years prior to this, confronted her and forced her to remember the error she'd made when she'd reassimilated them against their wishes.

Forcing them to return to the Borg wasn't her only mistake. The method she'd used had an unforeseen side effect. Even though Lansor, P'Chan, and Marika Willkara had managed to free themselves from the Collective several months prior to their meeting, they discovered that they now shared their thoughts with each other. The link had not been apparent when they were three of billions. Although they were now free of the "white noise" of the Collective, they still couldn't live in their own minds as individuals. What one of them felt or thought, the others did, too. They were willing to do anything to free themselves of each other's thoughts. The only one who could help them was Seven of Nine.

With the Doctor's help, they discovered what Seven had done. The minds of the three could be separated from each other, but if this was done, the resultant brain damage would doom them to death in a month or less. The only other option was for them to be reassimilated by the Borg. They could live on for many years then, but only as drones, without any ability to choose the course of the rest of their lives. They were now comatose, leaving Seven with a decision that was unrelentingly grim, no matter which she picked.

Seven chose for them to have a short life as individuals, rather than condemn them to living a long existence functioning in a system they abhorred. Seven knew she could not undo the damage she'd done, but she hoped that this was the decision would have made for themselves, if they were conscious and could express their opinion.

When they woke up and learned their remaining days would be short, but lived as individuals as they'd always wanted, the three assured Seven she'd made the right choice. Lansor decided to explore the station and enjoy his new life for as long as he could. P'Chan decided to spend what time he had left on a nearby world, close to nature. Both forgave her for making the wrong choice for them eight years before. Lieutenant Marika Willkarah said she would not forgive her, although she did admit she understood why Seven did what she did.

During the final month of her life, Lieutenant Marika remained on board _Voyager_ as a member of its crew. During the first two weeks, she served shifts in Engineering and enjoyed the chance to serve as a Starfleet officer once again. During the third week, her body began to weaken. The captain and the Doctor placed her on medical leave, and the lieutenant spent most of her time in her quarters, updating her personal log and recording memories of her early years on Bajor, her service in Starfleet, where she'd met her husband, and her impressions of life as a Borg.

Seven did not feel comfortable visiting her, but she spoke with Ensign Tabor and Crewman Tal Celes, to encourage them to spend time with their fellow Bajoran. Tal Celes reported to Seven afterwards that, "When we aren't praying to the Prophets, we trade stories about our favorite places to visit on our home planet. She told us she's glad we're on this ship and sharing time with her like this. Thank you for suggesting it, Seven. I should have thought of it myself. Tabor said the same thing."

Towards the end of her fourth week, Marika became very feeble. Ensign Tabor came to Seven and said, "She's never said she's forgiven you, but when we prayed to the Prophets today, she asked them to keep you safe. She knows you were a frightened child when you did what you did and bore her no malice. You're an important part of her history, even if it's painful for both of you. I think she'd like to say goodbye."

That night, while ingesting nutrients in Cargo Bay Two, Seven of Nine contemplated her existence, as well as that of Marika Willkarah, formerly Three of Nine of Unimatrix 01. The next morning, Seven went to the captain's ready room and made a special request: to be excused from duty in Astrometrics for that day so that she could "sit with a sick friend." The captain readily granted her request.

Seven entered the very comfortable quarters the captain had assigned to her temporary officer. Marika was stretched out on the couch, gazing out at the stars; but when Seven entered, she smiled weakly. After Seven explained she was there because Tabor had suggested her presence would not add to the Bajoran officer's pain, Marika nodded and pointed to the chair nearest the couch. Although sitting for prolonged periods continued to be uncomfortable for her, Seven took the seat offered and remained with Marika for the entire day. Whenever Marika pointed to the beaker on the table, Seven helped her take a drink. While the Doctor visited several times to check on his patient, he left her, for the most part, in Seven's care.

Towards the beginning of Beta shift, Tabor and Celes entered Marika's quarters. By this time, Marika's breathing had become somewhat uneven, but she was still conscious when Tabor bent over her and said, "You'll be with your husband in the Presence of the Prophets very soon now, Marika. When you go to them, do you want us to sing the death chant for you?"

Marika managed to breathe out one word: "Short." Tabor smiled and assured her that instead of the full death chants, which could take days, they would sing the abbreviated forms.

Seven stood up to leave, but Marika became agitated and shook her head. Marika reached out and grabbed Seven's left hand and whispered, "Stay." Seven nodded and sat down again. They listened while Tabor and Celes recited Bajoran folk tales and sang songs, until Marika's eyes closed but didn't reopen. Her breathing became more and more irregular and labored. Tabor and Celes spoke soft words of comfort. Marika no longer responded to them; and the next time the Doctor came in to check on his patient, he remained in the room to monitor her condition.

A little over an hour later, Seven felt the pressure from Marika's fingers lessen. Her chest rose and fell a few more times, but then, it was over. Tabor and Tal began chanting rituals which had been sung for millennia on their home planet, leading the soul of Marika Willkarah to meet her husband's in the Celestial Temple. The Bajoran Wormhole was far away from _Voyager's_ current position; but, as Tabor later explained to Seven, "Marika's faith will guide her there."

Seven stayed until Tabor's and Celes' chants were finished. She hoped the passings of Lansor and P'Chan had been as peaceful as Marika's.

=/\=


	17. Axum

=/\=

Despite her stated desire to do her job, regenerate, and then do her job again without outside interference, ad infinitum, she often was interrupted in her duties by events beyond her control, or the captain's for that matter. At first, she became quite hostile whenever her anticipated schedule was disrupted in any way. Over time, she came to realize that life as an individual couldn't be as controlled as a Borg drone's. Life could be messy. The crew were individuals who squabbled, loved, made bad decisions sometimes and altruistic ones at others, offered friendship and then withdrew it. All of them were far from their biological relatives. Loneliness was virtually a given. While the advent of regular contact with the Alpha Quadrant via Project Pathfinder had eventually brought a degree of relief, the crew generally dealt with their longing for home by the simple expediency of forming themselves into what Captain Janeway called the _Voyager_ family. Seven preferred another term: the _Voyager_ Collective.

And when a group of neonatal drones required rescue, it was Seven of Nine who saved the premature infant drone by sending her to the Doctor to be treated for breathing difficulties. She convinced four of the older five to find sanctuary on _Voyager_. Only the oldest, designated First, was so intent on waiting for the Borg Queen to retrieve them - even after Seven showed him the communication that proved she would never come - that he accepted death on the destabilizing Borg vessel rather than accept what life on _Voyager_ could offer him.

Seven told the survivors that they weren't necessarily "losing their Collective." They'd exchanged their imperfect Children's Collective for another, one which had the knowledge and willingness to nurture them until a real family could be found to take them in and care for them.

Although Seven did not recognize how important this would turn out to be at the time, the rescue of the children would turn out to be a key event in her life. The captain assigned the care of the older four survivors, who were ambulatory and verbal, to Seven. At first, she regarded this responsibility as an imposition, since it reduced the amount of time she had to continue her work in Astrometrics or Engineering. Over time, however, she embraced her position as "head of the family" when they became a subunit of the " _Voyager_ Collective."

Icheb, the oldest of the surviving neonatal drones, or, as the crew first called them, "Borglets," became Seven of Nine's savior when her cortical node began to fail. After the Doctor gave Seven this diagnosis, she expected her life as an independent being to end. She'd seen it happen before, to the first Three of Nine in her Unimatrix, when her cortical node failed during a mission. Icheb insisted he could survive without his. He forced her to accept it by disconnecting it from his cortical array. If she had not taken it then, both of them might have died. As he'd predicted, Icheb survived the surgery and could function without a cortical node.

When Icheb asked Seven to adopt him so their relationship would continue after they reached the Alpha Quadrant, she agreed, primarily out of gratitude for his selfless act. At first, she thought of him as a "little brother." Eventually, they became mother and son in all the ways which are important. Their connection became vital to her state of well-being when her foray into romance with her former nemesis Chakotay became less than idyllic, despite a promising beginning.

There may have been other factors, unrecognized at the time, influencing her decision to adopt Icheb. Since both had been children whose parents' actions had condemned them to assimilation, she felt a kinship with him. Their connection also comforted her after Azan and Rebi left _Voyager_ to live with their relatives on Wysanti - and Mezoti, who had been much closer to Seven and Icheb than the twins - chose to go with them. And the new bond with Icheb helped alleviate the pain of another loss Seven had just suffered, shortly before the children departed.

Seven had retrieved memories of a significant part of her history when she was summoned back to a place she'd forgotten, after someone she'd once known there asked her for a favor - rekindling emotions she'd never suspected she'd experienced - when she was Borg.

=/\=

"Is that the same Axum you knew in Unimatrix Zero, Seven?"

"I would appreciate the opportunity to actually enter Astrometrics before answering your question, Icheb," Seven said severely to her son. He was standing in the doorway, hindering her ability to pass into the lab. "I take it you were monitoring the bridge again."

"I follow that protocol whenever I'm on duty here by myself," he replied.

"You appear to be discounting the presence of Cadet Verit. I see her right behind you."

Icheb was nonplussed for only a moment. "I should have utilized the words 'in command' rather than 'on duty by myself.' Are you trying to distract me so that you can avoid answering my question? Is this the same Axum?"

"Apparently."

"Apparently?"

"I believe he is, but I will need to confirm his identity before I can be certain."

"He's coming to _Voyager_?"

"Since he's one of the representatives of the Borg Resistance forces, yes, he's coming to the meeting."

"You're finally going to meet him! In the 'real world,' not in virtual reality!"

"Apparently." Seven glanced over at Verit, Icheb's suitemate at the Academy. The Vulcan cadet had turned her attention back to the console controlling the main Astrometrics screen, monitoring the ships of Species 8472 and the Borg Resistance which had just emerged from the Rift. Seven had no doubt, however, that Verit was listening to every word and memorizing each nuance of Seven's conversation with her adopted son.

Icheb noticed the way Seven's eyes had flicked towards Verit. He immediately comprehended that continuing this conversation, concerning a person with whom his mother had once been involved in a romantic relationship, was not a fit subject to be discussed in front of the other cadet. He nodded slightly to Seven, his superior officer in Astrometrics, and turned back to the console he habitually utilized. While Seven fully expected Icheb would share the entire story with his suitemate once Seven was no longer in their presence - if he had not already done so, which she suspected he had - she was relieved that the rest of their conversation would be deferred until a measure of privacy existed.

She was curious to hear Icheb's reaction to Axum. He'd been on _Voyager_ during the Unimatrix Zero action, but he, as well as the younger children, had been sequestered as much as possible, in hopes that knowledge of the prospect of reassimilation could be kept away from them. The effort had not been particularly successful. Everyone on _Voyager_ had been extremely anxious during that time, and they'd been unable to prevent the children from learning the truth.

While Seven returned to her duties in Astrometics and tried to concentrate on her tasks rather than think about seeing Axum again, she found it very hard to do. He was here, in the Alpha Quadrant! She'd been so sure she would never see him again.

Would everything be the same between them as it was there? How could it be? So much had happened since their last parting. Chakotay. _Voyager's_ return to this quadrant. Her adoption of Icheb. Her regret over letting Mezoti leave _Voyager_ , which was growing ever worse over time. Perhaps Axum had found someone to love since the last time they were in Unimatrix Zero together, when they'd fought the Borg Queen over its very existence - and lost. From the image she'd seen on the viewscreen, Seven thought he was very handsome in the 'real,' although he bore visible scars on his head, vestiges of his Borg identity.

Five of Twelve and Seven of Nine had known each other in Unimatrix Zero for eighteen years. For six of those years, they'd been much more than friends.

She shook her head. It wouldn't be the same. How could it be? But her heart was pounding in a way it never had when she was involved with Chakotay.

And she'd never guessed his voice would sound that way. So Borg.

=/\=


	18. Return to Unimatrix Zero

=/\=

 _The forest is a beautiful place. The sun is warm, but a fresh, gentle breeze is keeping her cool. Refreshed. The air that lifts the tendrils of hair around her face and neck carries with it the scent of leaves and grasses, overlain by a sweet floral essence. This is a natural world, soothing to the spirit. It seems familiar in a way a she cannot explain. Has she ever been here before? Unlikely._

 _When she hears voices coming from behind, she turns. Three alien beings are walking on a path, headed in her direction. They're chatting and laughing over something one of them just said. Another says goodbye . . . and he disappears into thin air!_

 _She hears another voice. Warm, male. Shockingly, he calls out to her by name: "Annika!"_

 _She turns around. He reaches out for her . . ._

=/\=

Seven opened her eyes with a start. She was standing in her alcove in Cargo Bay Two, or what the Borg children preferred to call "Borg Central." The children had a full schedule of activities planned for today. They wouldn't be back until later, when it was time for them to regenerate. Then it would be their turn to occupy the alcoves. She was alone for now; she was supposed to be regenerating.

She remembered why she'd been so startled. The images - the smells - the sun on her face - the man who'd just called her by name - this couldn't have ever happened to her before. What was going on?

Seven of Nine was never easily intimidated, but this was profoundly disturbing. Jumping off the platform, Seven ran to Sickbay to seek help. Something must be wrong with her cortical array. She needed it fixed. The Doctor would help her - she hoped.

=/\=

"Another milestone. You've had your first dream!" the Doctor exclaimed excitedly.

"I felt awake," Seven said sourly.

"Dreams can often seem quite real," the Doctor explained. He asked her to describe the forest.

After she shared her perceptions, the Doctor suggested that Seven's dream would give them a glimpse into her unconscious mind. He was eager to attach symbolic meaning to the images, particularly that of the young man. "The mysterious stranger, for example - is he a father figure? Or does he represent a repressed desire for male companionship?"

Bringing up father figures was exactly the wrong thing for the Doctor to say in her disquieted state. "I don't wish to dream again! Please repair my cortical array!"

"This isn't a malfunction, Seven," he reassured her. "It's a natural step in your human development." Handing her a small cortical recording device to record her REM cycles, the Doctor eased her out of Sickbay to return to her alcove and complete regeneration.

And perchance to dream.

=/\=

Once she'd attached the REM monitor to her neck, Seven nervously stepped back into her alcove. While the Doctor might be eager for her to experience another dream, Seven would rather not. However, her regeneration cycle had ended prematurely, and she required the energy it provided if she was to perform her duties in an efficient manner. She would heed the Doctor's directions, but she hoped her cycle would proceed as it normally did.

=/\=

Seven opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by mist-filled darkness. Despite the change in scenery, she was certain this was the same forest where she'd just been. This time, the air was cool, almost chilly, and the odors were of moss and damp vegetation.

She turned slightly. A face loomed out of the darkness. A Klingon face.

Seven turned the other way and ran as fast as she could down the path. Her flight was blocked by a man stepping in front of her. Despite the dim lighting, she could see it was the same man who had called her by her birth name the first time was here. "Come with me," he said, holding her gently by the shoulders.

She could feel his touch, but she didn't want to believe she was here. "I'm regenerating," she insisted. "This is only a dream."

"You're not dreaming," he replied. "I brought you here. This is Unimatrix Zero."

=/\=

They walked side by side down the forest path. "There is no Unimatrix Zero," she said firmly. "Who are you?"

"Five of Twelve, Secondary Adjunct of Trimatrix Nine Four Two. But when I'm here, my name is Axum."

She repeated his name. It felt like something she'd said before, many times.

"Sound familiar?" he asked, and she had to admit it did. "Good. It's starting to come back to you."

Before either of them could say anything else, they heard the voice of a young boy. They turned to see him reaching out to them. "I think I'm lost."

Axum introduced himself and Annika to the boy. His casual use of her human name brought a pang of discomfort. Since the last confrontation with the Borg, when she learned how her father had put her in harm's way, she'd understood why she'd developed such an aversion to that name. Still, as they walked along and the boy described an attack by men who looked like machines, Seven decided that when Axum said it, it didn't disturb her as it did when others called her that.

When they reached the end of the path, they were in a clearing perched high above a tranquil bay. The view of the area below revealed dozens of glowing encampments. Axum described Unimatrix Zero, a virtual construct, where some of those who'd been assimilated by the Borg came while they regenerated. "When we're here, our thoughts are our own. You used to come here, before you escaped the Collective. You have the recessive mutation, too. Don't you remember any of it?"

She said she didn't, although in the back of her mind, she knew she would be able to recall coming here if she tried. She _had_ been here before. The details were fuzzy, but yes, Seven of Nine must have come here while she was a drone. "Why did you bring me here now?"

"The Collective has found a way to detect us," he explained. "They've managed to identify and deactivate nearly two hundred of us over the last few months. It's only a matter of time before they find enough of us to isolate the interlink frequency. Once they've done that . . . " He sighed. "You can help us stop them."

"Clarify," she said.

"We've designed a nanovirus that should mask the biochemical signature of the mutation, but we need someone to release it into the Collective."

"You're already on a Borg vessel. Why don't you do it?"

"When we've completed our regeneration cycles we have no memory of this place. But you're not a part of the Collective anymore." You're our only connection to the real world."

The "real" world. Something about that phrase struck a chord in her memory. She'd said the words on _Voyager_ from time to time, but they'd never had the resonance there that it had when Axum whispered into her ear. Or maybe it was the whispering in the ear part that resonated.

Whichever it was, Seven knew, without question, that he was telling her the truth. She trusted him, even though she was dismayed she had no clear image of him, apart from the here and now. She wondered if this could be significant. She couldn't deny that sense that she _should_ remember. She fought to suppress it, fearing what complete recall of her years as a Borg might reveal. It might be better if the secret of Unimatrix Zero should remain shut away in her memory. She suspected that recalling it might bring her as much pain as pleasure.

=/\=

Axum brought Seven to an encampment, consisting of airy, brightly lit tents, located in the middle of a forest clearing. They sat down on a bench (without Seven feeling pain, as she usually did whenever she sat on a hard surface). When an alien materialized, some of the people there called out "Siral." When Seven was surprised she recognized him, Axum said he was her friend.

And she recognized someone else, too. "I told you not to bring her here!" the Klingon who'd confronted her upon her arrival growled.

"We can't do this by ourselves," Axum answered back.

"It's too great a risk!"

"We don't have a choice."

"You do not speak for all of us," the warrior said, glaring at Axum.

"What would you rather do? Have us wait until we're all discovered? You disappoint me. Where's your warrior spirit?"

The Klingon snarled, "P'tak! I'll rip your heart out."

"Go ahead. Kill me," Axum replied. "I'll be back when I begin my next regeneration cycle. You can't stop me, Korok."

Korok turned to Seven. "If you come here again, you'll be putting your Starship at risk - and all of us as well."

"Shouldn't you be off sharpening your teeth?" A woman said, as she entered the clearing. Korok growled as he retreated.

"I know you! Your name is Laura. You're human."

Laura, who was assimilated at Wolf 359, told Seven her cybernetic implants make her look out of place in Unimatrix Zero. Seven had always considered her appearance irrelevant, but Axum disagreed. "No, it's not. They may have turned us into drones, but they can't change the essence of who we are." He paused. "My cycle is about to end. Talk to your captain. We can't do this without . . ." In the middle of a sentence, he was gone.

Seven spent a few minutes talking with Laura before returning to _Voyager_. She felt the same familiarity with her that she did with Axum. Laura was eager to find out how her friend Annika had fared on Captain Janeway's ship. "When you told us you were ordered onto _Voyager_ to convince the captain to join in the fight against Species 8472, we were all worried, until we heard you were alive. Did you encounter any member of Species 8472 on that ship?"

Seven immediately thought of the one who' d been badly wounded and simply wanted to go back home to die. Without Captain Janeway's permission, she'd transported him to a Hirogen ship. She assumed the hunter had killed him and taken his body parts as trophies. That act bothered her now, and she chose not to tell Laura that story. It was easier to relate the discovery of the Space Station "listening post." Although she hadn't gone down to the station, she had seen the Boothby, Valerie Archer, and Admiral Bulloch replicants when they came to _Voyager_ to confer with the captain. "But I stayed out of their way. I wasn't sure what they'd do to a Borg, even though I was no longer part of the Collective. The captain said the 'Boothby' looked and sounded exactly like the man she knew on Earth. They've been spying on what they call 'Dry Space' people. They're able to change their appearance to mimic just about anyone."

"I don't think they'll be able to infiltrate us in Unimatrix Zero. How would they get here? And I can't see them pretending to be Borg to spy on the Collective."

"I doubt that, too," Seven agreed, amused at the very thought.

Seven shared that _Voyager_ now had contact with the Alpha Quadrant. "Even though it's only possible once a month, the crew has been grateful this form of communication exists. Their families know they're alive." Laura asked Seven if she had any family in the Alpha Quadrant. "None that I remember," Seven replied. "My parents and I were assimilated at the same time."

"I know." Laura's knowledge startled Seven, but then she realized it was another indication that she _had_ been here before.

"I'd better get back," Seven said, and got up off the bench. Just before she left, Seven asked Laura, "Do Korok and Axum challenge each other like that very often?"

Laura laughed. "No. Actually, they're good friends. All four of us were, for a very long time. The disappearances are spooking all of us, I guess, not that Korok would admit it. You know Klingons."

"I know half of one," Seven remarked.

Laura stared at her and smiled quizzically. Perhaps she thought Seven was joking, but her expression quickly sobered. "I'm sure Korok would _like_ to fight, but he doesn't know how. This isn't the kind of enemy you can battle with knives and swords. He'd be more willing to go along with us if he could swing a bat'leth at an enemy. But how can you defend yourself against the possibility that someday, you'll simply disappear?"

=/\=


	19. Friends and Enemies

=/\=

Seven carried Axum's message to Captain Janeway, who called an emergency staff meeting. Seven described her visit to Unimatrix Zero and added, "We'd only need to infiltrate a single vessel."

"Heh! Just one?" Thomas Paris, who had just been promoted back to lieutenant earlier that day, was, to say the least, skeptical.

"I'm prepared to take a shuttle and do this alone," Seven replied.

Ensign Kim approached her and said, gently, "No offense, but how do you know this wasn't some kind of dream?"

"Seven was wearing a cortical monitor. She never reached REM sleep. She wasn't dreaming," the Doctor answered.

"Unimatrix Zero is real, and so are the people who go there. They need our help." Seven was surprised to detect a measure of pleading in her voice. It wasn't like her. Or maybe it was, when she was in Unimatrix Zero.

The captain interrogated her about Unimatrix Zero, although she seemed sympathetic to what Seven was saying, by and large. The others were not. The half-Klingon of her acquaintance, for one, asked if was worth putting everyone's lives on the line. That struck a nerve.

"It's my understanding that when we receive a distress call, we respond," Seven replied waspishly.

Ensign Kim reluctantly agreed with Seven. "She's right. This is no different."

The captain also agreed, but she wanted more information before deciding how to proceed. Commander Tuvok offered to perform a Vulcan mind meld technique called "the bridging of the minds." With his help, Captain Janeway and Seven could visit Unimatrix Zero together, with Tuvok silently observing while he served as a telepathic conduit throughout the procedure. The Doctor objected, saying the procedure might not be safe for any of them. When the captain decided to do something, however, objections from Chakotay, the Doctor - almost anyone - were moot. The captain advised Seven, "I think you'll be turning in early tonight . . ."

=/\=

When Captain Janeway materialized in the forest, she reached out and touched one of the trees. How real it felt! She smiled as she turned around to see more of her surroundings. She was surprised to see Seven, a very different Seven. Her hair was down; her implants weren't visible; and her voice and dress were soft and flowing. "Seven?" the captain asked wonderingly.

"Annika. That's what I'm called here." She seemed girlish, almost shy.

They found Axum, who explained to the captain they'd developed a nanovirus and why they needed someone else to deliver it to a Borg vessel, so that Unimatrix Zero would continue to be hidden from the Borg Queen.

Captain Janeway, while willing to help, expressed her concerns. "We'd only be putting off the inevitable." She paused. "Have you ever considered a more . . . permanent solution?"

"More permanent?" Axum asked.

"You've got a remarkable sanctuary here, but that's all it is. Maybe it's time to stop hiding and find a way to fight back." Axum didn't understand how they could. "If you could find a way to carry your individualities into the Real World - to wake up from your regeneration cycles with your memories intact - you could begin to undermine the Borg's control over you."

When Annika said it sounded like the captain was advocating a civil war, Captain Janeway clarified, "I prefer to call it . . . a resistance movement."

In the middle of their discussion, they heard screams of fright. Drones sent by the Borg Queen were stalking those who visited the sanctuary. When a Queen's drone captured anyone, he stuck assimilation tubules into the neck of his victim, and the reassimilated one disappeared. As the Queen had the cortical node of every captured drone removed, each capture represented another visitor permanently erased from the roster of those who came to Unimatrix Zero.

Korok swung his bat'leth and sent two of the Queen's drones back to their cubicles. A third managed to overcome Korok. Before that drone could deliver nanoprobes to reassimilate the Klingon, Captain Janeway picked up the fallen weapon and dispatched him.

Using links with the visual processing implants in her drones' eyes, the Borg Queen had been enjoying the view of the battle from the comfort of her personal chamber in the Unicomplex. The one who had tried and failed to reassimilate Korok looked into the face of his attacker.

The Borg Queen recognized her nemesis before the view through her drone's eyes fizzled away. Her voice resonated with supreme malice throughout her chamber when she uttered the name: "Janeway!"

=/\=

The attack on Unimatrix Zero solidified Captain Janeway's determination to save the actual lives of the drones of Unimatrix Zero. This resolve was not altogether altruistic in nature. If a significant number of drones could be returned to individuality, as Seven and the Borg children had been, their loss, along with any resources the Queen lost in an attempt to reassimilate them, would be a drain on the Borg. What if the freed drones found a way to attack the Unicomplex itself? How much damage could they do via a direct invasion? If they did, and it was successful, everyone in the galaxy would benefit. Even if those who'd been freed didn't try such a radical action, losing any number of drones to freedom would be a blow to the Queen. Captain Janeway would not be deterred from trying to free them, if only to save them from bondage.

The Doctor's modifications to the nanoprobe virus transformed its masking function into what could best be described as a 'wakeup call.' The Queen would no longer hear those drones. She could search for them, but she'd have trouble finding every one. Her only recourse would be to destroy entire cubes full of drones. Would she really want to weaken her forces that way?

Another modification of the captain's plan was also made, but this one was not so much to her liking. Kathryn Janeway wanted to invade the chosen cube and inject the virus into the vessel's Central Plexus, which would disseminate it throughout the Borg's humongous fleet. Seven volunteered to deliver it herself, but, as the captain noted, she was the only one who could enter Unimatrix Zero to keep in touch with what was going on there. Seven had to remain on _Voyager_. The captain wanted to be the one to deliver it - by herself.

The captain's plan for a sole run was stymied by Tuvok and B'Elanna Torres. They demanded that they both come along as well: Tuvok, to provide security services; and B'Elanna, to utilize her engineering skills to make the operation run smoothly - or as smoothly as an invasion of a Borg Class 4 Tactical Cube possibly could. A Class 4 Tactical cube was one of the largest vessels in the Borg's arsenal.

Naturally, the captain balked at the proposal, but another voice, even more compelling, was raised against her plan of going to the tactical cube by herself. When she first decided to go with Seven to visit Unimatrix Zero, she'd told her first officer that she needed his support on the venture to proceed. He gave it. Now, he told her if she wanted his continued cooperation, she had to bring Tuvok and B'Elanna with her on the mission. Begrudgingly, she agreed.

Many elements would need to go just right if the plan to deliver the away team to their target was to succeed. As far as the captain of _Voyager_ was concerned, everything would. If she had to confront the Queen of the Borg _mano-a-mano_ , she would. In fact, she relished the prospect.

=/\=

Seven traveled to Unimatrix Zero again to share information about the planned action with those they wished to aid. When she arrived, Axum reported that Klingon warriors and Hirogen hunters were roaming through the forest, targeting drones, but despite their best efforts, more were being lost every hour. Axum showed Annika a gift from Korok. "Takes some getting used to," he told Annika, holding up a bat'leth.

"I'm sure you'll adapt," she smiled.

When several of the Queen's drones approached, they hid behind some rocks. Instinctively, Axum placed his arm protectively around her shoulders. After a tense moment, the drones moved off without discovering them. As Axum removed his arm, he apologized to her.

Annika became thoughtful. "That felt . . . familiar. Our touching."

"I told you, we were friends," he replied, but she could tell there was more he wasn't saying. Perhaps much more. When he refused to elaborate, she gave him a tender kiss on the lips.

As she backed away from him, more than a little breathless and very confused, she stated, even though she phrased it as a question, "We were more than friends, weren't we?" She knew the answer even before Axum hesitantly nodded agreement.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You'd forgotten. It wasn't my place."

"How long?"

"Six years. Only while we were regenerating." He paused, then continued wistfully, "A very memorable six years. For me, anyway."

More than friends - for six years! Seven felt a rush of paralyzing emotion. She could never remember feeling anything like this before. How could she not remember, if it had been that important to her in the past? A wave of panic washed over her. Despite the open forest setting of Unimatrix Zero, she suddenly felt claustrophobic, much like the way Tom Paris must have felt when he kept climbing out of his stasis tube while their ship was passing through a Mutara-class nebula, two years before.

"I should return to _Voyager_ ," she said abruptly.

"Annika -"

Coldly, she informed him, "My name is Seven of Nine." She shimmered away as even more memories rose to the surface of her mind. She wanted to deny them, but her virtual reality avatar knew the touch of those lips, even as her conscious mind was dismayed by the implications.

=/\=


	20. Unimatrix Zero Can No Longer Exist

=/\=

When Annika returned to let the drones of Unimatrix Zero know the away team was on its mission to deliver the virus to the tactical cube, she explained that when they left their alcoves, fully aware of the entirety of their existence for the first time, they might be startled or disoriented, but if they didn't behave like drones, their plan could be exposed.

"Our ships are scattered across the galaxy," Laura said. "Most of us will be the only drone on board who knows about this place."

"She's right," Korok agreed. "What can we hope to achieve?"

"We should each gather as much tactical data as we can: what kind of ship we're on, its armaments, location. Then we'll coordinate our efforts from here," Axum advised.

As the others moved off, Axum said to Annika, "If all goes well, we'll be working very closely together."

"As colleagues," she replied. "Nothing more." After a brief hesitation, she added, "Our previous . . . friendship . . ."

"Yes?" Axum asked.

"It's irrelevant."

He almost snarled and sarcastically responded, "Irrelevant. Well, now that I'll be able to retain my memory . . . I'll keep that in mind."

=/\=

While Seven was reluctant to return to Unimatrix Zero again, Chakotay wanted her there when the virus was released to ask those coming to the sanctuary if they now remembered anything about their current situations. When she arrived at the clearing, Korok was there, but Axum was not. Korok told her the Borg were increasing their attacks and identifying them, one by one. "If you're looking for your mate, he is not here," he added.

Seven declared sharply, "He's _not_ my _mate_. He must not be regenerating."

"That or he's dead. He should have been here hours ago. No one's seen him." Less brusquely, he added, "If he died in battle I'm sure it was honorable. It's obvious your heart is in conflict. Some advice from a warrior in the bedchamber as well as the battlefield. At times like these you must treat your heart as the enemy, so you won't be distracted in battle."

"I'll keep that in mind," Seven frostily replied, trying to hide how disturbed she was that Axum might indeed be one of the drones who had been lost to Unimatrix Zero forever.

=/\=

Seven returned to _Voyager_ and told Commander Chakotay that drones returning to Unimatrix Zero were now reporting they'd retained their memories of Unimatrix Zero after their regeneration cycles ended, confirming that the virus had been deployed. "Good. We're going to need all the help we can get. The away team's still trapped on that cube." He ordered Seven to return to Unimatrix Zero to enlist the help of any drones who might be on the same cube, or even in the general vicinity.

The Doctor went with Seven to "Borg Central," saying he needed to make a few last-minute adjustments to her alcove before she returned to Unimatrix Zero. While they were there, he convinced Seven she'd been in denial about her true feelings for Axum. The EMH noted that her pupils dilated and her outer epidermis layer assumed a rosier hue whenever Seven mentioned Axum's name. "Both are consistent with an emotional response."

Reluctantly, she admitted they'd once had a romantic relationship. When she said she wanted to end it, the Doctor demurred. "My readings say otherwise . . . . If you were involved with Axum once, doesn't that suggest he's a worthwhile individual?"

"He does possess . . . commendable qualities."

"Coming from you, that's high praise. There's nothing wrong with feeling ambivalent, Seven. After all, you're in the middle of a civil war. But eventually you may want to give this romance a second chance. Who knows? You may even get to meet him in person someday."

Seven nodded to acknowledge his comment as she stepped into her regeneration alcove to return to the sanctuary. Just as she was leaving, the Doctor added, "I'll say this for your Mr. Axum: he's a very lucky man."

As her mind flew to Unimatrix Zero, the Doctor's smile faded away. He'd given her good advice; he knew that, although it meant his own cherished hopes of a future with her could never be realized - if she chose to take it.

=/\=

Korok and Axum were conferring with each other about coordinating their next phase, now that all of those returning to Unimatrix Zero were telling them they remembered it when they were on their vessels. Korok wanted to build up a fighting force of freed drones, but Seven pointed out another objective. The _Voyager_ away team needed to be rescued. Although Korok was initially reluctant, he finally said he'd find out if any of the vessels which had managed to break free from the Collective were in that area. Axum sadly informed Seven his was not. "It turns out I'm on a scout ship patrolling the border of fluidic space - on the other side of the galaxy."

Seven said sadly, "I was hoping we'd be able to meet one day, in the real world."

"Me, too," he replied. "There are things I can do where I am. I'll try to contact Species 8472 - see if I can persuade them to join the fight."

"Given their history with the Borg, I'm sure they'll be eager. I guess this rules out Vorothon Gorge." When he paused, as if he didn't recall the reference, she added, "It was at the top of our list of things to see in the real world if we were ever freed from the Collective. Don't you remember?"

"We could add fluidic space to our list." And he added, "We still have Unimatrix Zero."

Seven softly said, "It was sufficient before." This time, their kiss deepened. With the feel of his arms around her, the memories flooded back. Yes, when she was still Borg, she had learned to love in this place. Now the Queen was doing her best to tear it apart.

=/\=

The plan had not gone smoothly at all. While Captain Janeway and Lieutenant Torres maintained their own individuality after assimilation, thanks to a second preparation developed by the Doctor to suppress any mental connection to the hive mind, Commander Tuvok's hold was tenuous. Since the Queen could hear him, she discovered the team was in the tactical cube's Central Plexus. Through a virtual construct method of her own, she brought her nemesis to her Unicomplex and demonstrated to Captain Janeway that she was, in fact, prepared to sacrifice thousands of drones to destroy any threat from the ones who visited Unimatrix Zero.

"Spatial grid 94, cube 630. Complement: 64,000 drones but I can no longer hear three of them. No doubt they've joined your resistance. Are they trying to sabotage the vessel and liberate others? I don't know . . . because I can no longer hear them." She turned with a sinister smile towards the image of her nemesis as she ordered, "Initiate self-destruct." The captain could only watch helplessly as Cube 630, with 64,000 drones on board, exploded into millions of tiny fragments. "An effective solution, don't you agree?" the Queen said, with a self-satisfied air.

The Queen promised to stop the destruction if all of the drones with the mutation agreed to rejoin the Collective. If not . . . "I thought you'd like to see our latest accomplishment. Recognize it?" When the captain said she didn't, the Queen said, "I think you do. It's your nanovirus, with a few modifications. We reprogrammed it to target your mutated drones. Once it's released, it will erode their autonomic functions. They will die within minutes." She was prepared to visit Unimatrix Zero and release it there. Magnanimously, Queen would allow the captain to "visit" _Voyager_ , utilizing the holoemitters in Sickbay, to offer a compromise. "If they rejoin the Collective I'll spare their lives. They listen to you. Tell them it's time to come home. You were responsible for many deaths. Now you can save thousands. Decide."

=/\=

Ensign Kim reported to acting captain Chakotay, "Someone's tapping into our holographic systems. It's a Borg signal." The Doctor summoned Chakotay to Sickbay, because "someone's come to see you and Seven, Commander."

Captain Janeway's ghostly image said, "The Borg have established this link so I could propose a compromise. They've developed a nanovirus that can kill every Borg with the mutation. They're prepared to release it inside Unimatrix Zero unless all the drones there return to the Collective for reassimilation immediately."

"That's not compromise - that's surrender!" Seven exclaimed.

The image of Janeway continued, "I won't be responsible for any more deaths. At least they'll survive as drones. Tell them Unimatrix Zero can no longer exist. That's an order. Have I made myself clear, Commander?"

"Yes, Captain," Chakotay replied.

When the captain's image flickered away, Seven became upset. Chakotay did not. "Can you disrupt the interlink frequency for Unimatrix Zero?" he asked her.

The Doctor interrupted, "Commander . . . the Captain gave us a direct order!"

"Yes, she did, but not the one you think. Seven?"

"I believe I can, but why?"

"Didn't you hear? Unimatrix Zero can no longer exist." Inexplicably, Chakotay seemed completely at peace with the statement. If it meant that the lives of Korok, and Laura, and especially, Axum, would be saved, Seven would comply with his order, no matter how badly she felt about doing it.

=/\=

When it was almost too late, she ran to her regeneration alcove to return to Unimatrix Zero, to admit her feelings to Axum.

Unimatrix Zero's visual response to Seven's disruption of the interlink frequency was conflagration. Seven found Axum standing at the edge of the cliff, the only being remaining in Unimatrix Zero, watching as it consumed itself so that the Queen's virus would reach none of the drones she was so eager to regain for the Collective - or destroy if they would not submit.

When he saw her, Axum said, "You shouldn't be here."

"Neither should you!" She raced towards him and they embraced each other fiercely. As much as she wished otherwise, Seven knew that it was the last time they would ever be together. "I've wasted our time together!" she moaned.

"No, you didn't. It gave us a chance to fall in love again," he said warmly.

"We've lost our only way to be together."

"No. I'll find you," he promised.

The tell-tale flickering of a disappearing drone warned her, "Axum...?"

"I'll find you!" he insisted, as he disappeared.

The image of Seven of Nine, who answered to the name of Annika whenever she was here, flickered and disappeared for the last time, as the forest, sea, and sky of Unimatrix Zero exploded into extinction.

=/\=

The away team's chances for escape looked bleak. After Lieutenant Torres and Captain Janeway delivered the virus to the cube's Central Plexus and were ready to leave, bringing the tortured Lieutenant Commander Tuvok with them, they discovered the shields in that area of the cube were too strong for _Voyager_ to transport them off the cube. To make matters worse, once the Queen realized the danger they presented, she ordered the tactical cube to self-destruct.

If Tuvok's presence on the away team had endangered the success of the mission, Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres' inclusion had saved it, and their lives. With her engineering savvy, supplemented by working with Seven for the past three years, familiarizing herself with Borg components, _Voyager's_ chief engineer was able to take down the Borg's shields in that part of the cube, just before the Queen's order to self-destruct was implemented. Even so, perhaps the away team should have died when the cube blew up; but there was one vessel, controlled by the new Borg Resistance Group, that was close enough to support their escape.

General Korok's sphere fired on the tactical cube, helping _Voyager_ to retrieve the away team. Korok's sphere and _Voyager_ burst out of the massive debris storm created when the Class 4 Tactical Cube blew up. As big as that cube was, the individual pieces of it were no larger than those that had been left from the Borg scout ship, which _Voyager_ had accidentally blown up in their quest for a transwarp coil, only months before.

This time, there was no question that _Voyager_ would linger in the vicinity, searching through the wreckage for items to salvage.

=/\=

Korok, his warrior spirit revived now that he was no longer a prisoner of the Borg, told Chakotay, the acting captain of _Voyager,_ he would do his best to stay in touch while he searched for other Borg who had been freed from the Queen's tyranny. Captain Janeway had established the Borg Resistance Movement, just as she'd hoped.

Before leaving _Voyager_ , Korok visiting Kathryn Janeway, B'Elanna Torres, and Tuvok in Sickbay, where the Doctor was treating them to reverse the effects of assimilation. Tuvok was unconscious during thevisit, but Korok spoke with the captain and the lieutenant, praising them for their heroism during the action. That he'd been against the plan at the start was not something he wished to contemplate now, so he didn't mention it. Instead, he simply thanked them most sincerely, especially for helping him regain his own honor as a Klingon warrior.

It can only be surmised how angry the Borg Queen became because of this new blow to Borg perfection. It was easy to imagine her fury that she'd been unable to reassimilate the drones with the mutant gene who'd broken free of her rule. The Queen had lost control of tens of thousands of drones - maybe hundreds of thousands, because she hadn't been able to destroy the Borg Resistance drones who'd taken control of their ships and broken the Queen's links with the rest of the drones on their vessels. She told herself she'd lost only a paltry fraction of Unimatrix Zero drones, choosing not to acknowledge that in her rage, she'd destroyed massive cubes containing hundreds of thousands more, just because she couldn't hear one or two drones inside them.

And worst of all, the Queen's pesky nemesis and her stubborn crew of troublemakers, who wouldn't submit to her demands to be absorbed into the Collective, enraged her beyond reason. Despite the power of the all-mighty Collective, they'd managed to escape her grasp once again.

=/\=


	21. Meeting in the Real World

=/\=

After the virtual reality sanctuary of Unimatrix Zero was destroyed, Seven of Nine, who had once been Annika there, was certain she would never be with Axum again. How could they ever meet in person now? His sphere was in the farthest reaches of the galactic fringe, in the Beta Quadrant, while _Voyager_ was still deep in the Delta Quadrant. He'd promised to find her again, but he couldn't say how that unbridgeable gulf between them could be overcome. There was nothing he could have said to comfort her. They were lifetimes away from each other, even one with as long a life expectancy as Axum's.

She mourned his loss. She accepted that viewing Vorothon Gorge with Axum in the "real" someday was a fantasy. She was so certain of this, she explored a romantic relationship with Chakotay. Ultimately, that romance did not work out the way she hoped, and she feared she would always live alone, without a partner like Axum to share her life with, knowing what it was to have been Borg.

And now, here he was.

=/\=

When General Korok and Axum, along with several Species 8472 representatives, emerged from the turbolift for the meeting in _Voyager's_ conference room, Captain Janeway greeted the visitors. The two former Borg stepped to the right, not the left, allowing the others to pass by them. The captain smiled slightly and said blandly, "Would you like to say hello to people you've met before . . . in one reality, or the other?"

Noisy greetings were exchanged between Korok, Chakotay, and Tom Paris, drawing almost everyone's attention on them and not on the much quieter reunion taking place on the upper ramp of the bridge. Axum slowly approached the Astrometrics station Seven always assumed when she was on the bridge. At first they said nothing, but as he peered intently into Seven's eyes, Axum took a final step, close enough to touch Seven's Borg-enhanced left hand. "We were sso far apart, and now I'm closse enough to touch you. Perhapss a visit to Vorothon Gorge iss no longer out of the quesstion."

Seven did not reply. She could not reply. It was all she could do to prevent herself from throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her body as tightly against his as she could. On the bridge, though, this simply was not done; but the powerful connection they'd had in Unimatrix Zero was still there, and perhaps even stronger now because of their long separation. This time, she needed no reminders about their history. She'd regained almost all of her memories of the sanctuary, particularly those last few precious visits, when she'd wasted their time together, as she'd thought. Axum said they had fallen in love all over again, and Seven knew it was true. Invisible strands of desire connected her to Axum, even as he pulled his hand away from hers and stepped aside to let her pass. At the captain's request, Seven was to participate in the meeting.

As Axum and Seven stepped quietly away in the direction of the corridor leading to the conference room, no one looked their way. Korok's effusive conversation with Chakotay and Tom had taken center stage. Had Axum asked Korok to distract everyone else on the bridge while his first "real life" meeting with his Annika took place? Whether he had or not, that's what had occurred.

=/\=

There weren't enough chairs for everyone, but those who had been Borg preferred to stand behind or next to others to whom they were close. Seven's place was behind Captain Janeway, which gave her an excellent view of the other participants - particularly Axum, who was on the other side of the room, near the beings from Fluidic Space. The Fluidians, as Tom Paris suggested they call them, and those who had been Borg, confirmed that the Queen was gone. No sign of the Unicomplex had been found anywhere they'd looked, and the search had been extensive. To all appearances, the Borg as a Collective entity had been destroyed as completely as their Transwarp conduit system. Although the search for survivors by the ships of the Borg Resistance continued, only a fraction of all the drones assimilated by the Collective had been discovered and rescued.

The participants agreed upon the need to establish peaceful relations between the newly-designated Fluidians, the Borg survivors, the Federation, and its allies. While some of the Fluidians (the one who looked like Admiral Bulloch, especially) were still skeptical, even they grudgingly had to admit they hadn't discovered any evidence that the people of "Dry Space" were planning any aggressive actions towards the people of Fluidic Space. The Borg, such as Korok and Axum, expressed their trust in Captain Janeway. As General Korok stated, "Captain Janeway has freed as all."

"No, I didn't," the captain said. "Admiral Janeway did, with a serum developed by Cadet Icheb, Seven's adopted son."

Seven had gradually become conscious that Axum's mind was brushing against hers occasionally. Was he attempting to communicate with her subvocally? When Captain Janeway identified Icheb as Seven's son, Axum stared at her, and she clearly heard, _I knew about Icheb's existence from Korok, but not that he's your son._

She detected concern on his part, and something else she thought he might not have been ready to convey to her yet. He wanted to have a relationship with her again, like they did in Unimatrix Zero - but this time, a real one. Was that why he'd come here? He'd told her he'd find her again, and now, he had.

Seven refocused her attention on the meeting. The group laid the groundwork for peace talks, and then the meeting was adjourned. As the participants began to leave, however, Admiral Paris called out to Seven, "We should speak with your son. I know he's been curious about what happened to the Borg after the serum he developed was deployed. Since it's been even more devastating to them than he predicted, I want to let him know the truth before word gets out to everyone. I want to be sure he can accept the magnitude of the destruction."

Most of the meeting participants had shuffled out of the conference room after Captain Janeway summoned Icheb to the conference room. Admiral Paris the other members of _Voyager's_ crew remained, along with Captain Picard, the Admiral Bulloch, Boothby, and Valerie Archer Fluidians, Korok, and Axum. Since the room was no longer as crowded as it had been, Axum moved over to sit in the chair next to the seat Seven had taken. "Your son destroyed the Borg Queen?"

There was only one answer she could give. "Yes, but the serum was delivered by Captain Janeway's counterpart from another timeline, Admiral Janeway. She had no place here, and she knew it. She volunteered to be the 'sacrificial lamb.' But Icheb had prepared another dose for himself. If she had failed, he was going to sacrifice himself to make a second attempt."

"Korok told me he'd been impressed with him, and with another young Borg you rescued."

"Mezoti," she answered.

"Yes, that's the one." He didn't press her. She was glad. Mezoti had done much good on Wysanti when Borg Resistance drones sought help from the physicians there because of medical problems from failing implants; but Seven missed her desperately, now, more than ever.

Icheb entered the conference room, and Admiral Paris informed him of what had happened to the Borg. Seven was proud of him; he took it well. She'd expected nothing less.

As the second meeting broke up, Seven wondered if she should introduce Icheb to Axum. Icheb made the decision for her when he came over to where they were standing. Axum told Icheb he had many questions to ask him, but "for now, let me just ssay I'm very pleased to meet Annika'ss sson."

Seven hugged Icheb, who smiled at Axum and said, "Axum, I notice your vocal processor has what we call a 'glitch' in it. Seven repaired a glitch in mine a long time ago. She's very good at it. It will only take a few moments for the adjustment. And it won't hurt at all."

"Would you be willing to do thiss for me, Annika?" Axum asked her.

She was more than willing to provide this small service for him. The necessary instruments were in Cargo Bay Two. As the three walked out of the conference room, Icheb announced he was returning to the Astrometrics station on the bridge. Seven had no doubt, from the way her son's eyes were sparkling, that he understood how much his mother looked forward to spending time with Axum - in private.

=/\=


	22. Am I in Heaven?

=/\=

They were silent during their walk to the turbolift. Once they entered it, however, she felt compelled to fill the silence. "How did the Borg and the 'Fluidians' become allies?"

"Don't you remember, Annika? I told you I wass going to approach them to ssee if we could join forcesss againsst the Queen. My sscout ship wass at the border of the rift between our sspace and theirss when we detected five of the Borg cubess approaching in attack formation. When they fired upon uss, my crew communicated ssubvocally. We all agreed we would rather die than be reassssimilated. We entered Fluidic sspace. The other vesselss did not follow."

The turbolift doors opened. When they reached the doorway to Cargo Bay Two, she came to a halt and smiled when he looked quizzically down at her. "We have arrived at what Icheb and the other children chose to call 'Borg Central.'" Axum stopped for a moment to take in the cavernous surroundings. "It is not much like . . . Unimatrix Zero," she said haltingly.

"With all the machinery and rowss of containerss, it lookss a true Borg kind of place," he said, smiling. "Iss thiss where you live?" She followed his gaze and saw he was looking at the row of regeneration cubicles standing on the platform near the computer work station.

"It is, when I'm on _Voyager_. Icheb and the children lived here, too, when they were with me. The crew often called it 'Borg Central,' too, although its formal designation is Cargo Bay Two. On Earth, I live in a house. It is . . . greener there. I have a garden." At the mention of her garden, Seven suddenly felt awkward.

Axum showed no sign he'd noticed. "Your sson livess here, too?"

"He did at one time. So many of his implants have been removed, he requires only short periods of regeneration. He has been assigned regular crew quarters."

"Where are the other children?"

"We left them on a planet far from here, in the Delta Quadrant." Seven heard her voice tighten, reminding her of their purpose in coming here. "My tool belt is over by the platform. Please, follow me."

At her direction, he sat down on the edge of the platform. She noted that he kept his legs stretched out before him. His spinal implants must make sitting uncomfortable for him, too. As she fetched her tool belt and selected the appropriate instrument, she said, "You were telling me how the Borg Resistance became allies of the Fluidians."

"Yesss. They patrolled their sside of the rift ass well. We ssent them a message. You told Laura about the Species 8472 . . . Fluidian space station . . . " As the hissing in his voice disappeared, he stopped and smiled up at her.

"Please, continue. The adjustment is a simple one, but I want to make certain I've completed the procedure."

"Yes . . . Well, Laura told us about Captain Janeway's meeting on the space station with Species 8472, who looked like people the captain and her crew knew on Earth. I thought they must understand the Federation standard language. I sent them a message that said, 'Captain Janeway of _Voyager_ told us of Boothby and Archer. We are not Borg now. Help us.' They didn't fire on us, but they bracketed our position. We didn't dare move, in case it would be interpreted as an aggressive action. Our scout ship held that position for four days, until we received a message from them that said, 'Follow.' One of their bioships pulled out of formation, and we traveled behind it for many days. Finally, we approached another bioship - a huge one. My scout ship fit inside, in what I assume was a docking port of some kind. Maybe they built it just for us. Bioships can grow new structures whenever they're needed, you know.

"I was directed to a corridor leading into the interior that was filled with air. I followed it until I reached a chamber that looked like _Voyager's_ conference room. A woman sat at the table with a man who looked like a Vulcan. It was Valerie Archer and Kirin. You'll meet him at another of the meetings. They questioned me extensively about how I knew Captain Janeway, why other Borg ships were attacking us, and all about my personal history as a Borg. I answered their questions as completely as I could. Archer made me describe Janeway to her, so I thought she must have met the captain. Finally, she seemed satisfied and told me one of their leaders was coming. We remained in their bioship until he arrived. It was Boothby. He agreed to help us find other Borg Resistance ships. He already knew the Borg were fighting with each other, but until my ship came to them, none of their species had any idea about what it was all about.

"That was the start. We met up with Korok and others from the Resistance, and we fought the Queen's ships. When the bioships attacked, even the big tactical cubes retreated. Without the Fluidians' help, I don't know how long the Resistance would have lasted. In one battle, my scout ship was so severely damaged, our entire crew transferred to the sphere I'm on now. After a while, I thought we _might_ be gaining ground against the Queen's forces. Then suddenly, in the middle of a battle pitting one cube against five of our vessels, the cube blew up. We were surprised, because we didn't believe any of our weapons had pierced their shields. When we reviewed our image files, we saw the cube had self-destructed. We didn't know why.

"After that, we couldn't find any more intact Borg vessels to attack. The only ones left were those that had been taken over by the Resistance."

"How did you take over your scout ship?"

"As all of our vessels were taken. The Unimatrix Zero drones on board destroyed the Central Plexus, cutting off contact with the Queen. Although our fellow Borg became disoriented, we were able to tell them what had happened through subvocal communication. They believed us, especially after they realized they were individuals again."

"I cannot believe it was an easy adjustment. It was very difficult for me when I was disconnected from the Collective."

"But you were alone on this ship then, were you not? A few drones who had been Borg for a very long time did have trouble with the change, but as a group, we helped each other adapt."

She still had many questions about all that happened; and she assumed he had much he wanted to learn about her, too; but then she became aware of _him_. She could sense the warmth emanating from his body, and there was a heady spiciness to his scent that was unlike any other humanoid's she'd detected before. It was not unpleasant, in fact, quite the opposite. She'd never perceived anything like it when they were in Unimatrix Zero.

He stood up then, and she wondered if he would leave her. Instead, he touched her arm lightly and said, "Annika, thank you. My voice . . . it's the way I always heard myself when I was in Unimatrix Zero. With you."

His touch was shocking. She hadn't realized just how ephemeral touch had been in their virtual reality world. Even that last time together, when they clung to each other so desperately, as Unimatrix Zero was disintegrating all around them, it hadn't felt like this. Here in the 'real,' touch was a far more powerful sense than it had ever been in the virtual world where they'd met.

They both caught their breath at the same time, gazed into each other's eyes, and smiled. It was if they were a Collective of two, sharing their thoughts and emotions. He wrapped his arms around her, the way he had that last time in Unimatrix Zero. They kissed. And kissed. And kissed. Seven finally took a step back. He grabbed her by the arm, the one still threaded with Borg circuitry. That circuitry, which usually protected her from surges of electromagnetic forces, was powerless to prevent the excitation of the nervous system below her skin wherever he touched her.

She smiled. "I can feel hormones racing through my body now, Axum, just from your touch."

"Hormones? Is that what I'm feeling?" The color of his skin seemed to visibly pale. "They're very powerful. They're making me feel . . . very . . . lightheaded."

And then she remembered. "Axum! Do you still have an emotional inhibitor chip in your cortical node?"

"My what?" he mumbled.

"It causes the brain of a drone to shut down if it becomes overstimulated by emotions."

"I thought it was . . . because I was so . . . close to you. I never thought . . . I would be. I've never been . . . so happy . . . to be mistaken . . .about something . . . in my entire . . ."

He collapsed into her arms. She managed to keep him from falling to the floor by easing him back onto the platform. She knew she'd never be able to hold him if he were standing up while she activated her combadge.

"Sickbay! Emergency beam-out required from Cargo Bay Two!"

=/\=

"You may relax now, Seven. Annika. Whatever you prefer to call yourself these days. The offending emotional inhibitor chip has been removed. When your friend Mr. Axum awakens, he will be free to experience the full gamut of emotions, from passionate love to murderous rage. I would hope the latter isn't part of his natural psyche, but one never really knows until one is free to enjoy the benefits of true individuality." The Doctor sniffed audibly as he put away his surgical instruments.

Seven hid her amusement. She could tell his attitude originated from another emotion: jealousy. She decided to ask B'Elanna how he became so well versed in human behaviors. While Seven had often performed diagnostics on the Doctor when B'Elanna was not available to complete them, she'd never asked the chief engineer about the EMH program's evolution into the sentient photonic being he now proudly declared himself to be. The process had begun during his first years in the Delta Quadrant, long before she arrived on _Voyager_.

To the Doctor, however, she only said, "I believe the personality he exhibited in Unimatrix Zero will be the one we shall see when he wakes up. He was most gentle there. I'm sure causing the death of another being is beyond the scope of his basic nature."

"I should think he murdered many individuals when he was Borg," the Doctor responded.

Her sad whisper was just barely audible to the EMH program's extremely sensitive audio subroutine. "So did I, Doctor. So did I."

The EMH suddenly recalled a time when his own program's functioning had been severely compromised, when he himself had become a murderer. He had the grace to be ashamed of his comment. To cover his discomfiture, the Doctor waved his tricorder in Seven's direction and jovially remarked, "Ah, I see your pupils are dilated to a greater degree than can be explained by the level of light in this Sickbay alone."

She smiled at him. "I cannot deny it. I have been aware of the phenomenon ever since he walked onto the bridge for the meeting."

Before the Doctor could formulate a reply, Icheb entered Sickbay. He looked very worried as he asked, "How is Axum doing? I heard he suffered a medical crisis in Cargo Bay Two. Were there complications when you tried to fix his subvocal processor?"

Seven assured him, "He is on the mend. His crisis was due to a malfunction . . . rather, it was due to a _properly_ functioning emotional inhibitor chip. The Doctor was able to remove it without causing any damage to Axum's cortical node."

"Thank you, Doctor," Icheb said, grinning somewhat more expansively than the Doctor thought was warranted in this situation. Of course, the cadet knew the purpose of the emotional inhibitor chip, not to mention what the removal of one implied.

"If you're planning to remain here to supervise our patient's progress, Seven. I'll adjourn to my office and update my medical log concerning my treatment of Mr. Axum. If you detect any changes in him at all, please alert me."

"I will, Doctor," Seven said softly, and turned back to gaze at the man lying on the biobed.

Icheb followed the Doctor into his office. "Thank you for helping Axum, Doctor. My mother would be extremely upset to lose him now. They've just found each other again. Mezoti told me it was very difficult for her when she thought they'd never meet."

Gruffly, he said, "You're quite welcome, Cadet." He peeked out of his office doorway and observed the two former Borg in the surgical bay. "He isn't much to look at, is he? I mean . . . right now," the EMH hastened to add, cognizant of the fact that his companion might take offense to his deprecating comment. "A little plastic surgery would seem to be in order. I should be able to regrow his hair over those bald patches on his skull, where he had implants removed. That would improve his appearance a great deal. Once he's regained consciousness, I'll ask him if he would like me to perform any other procedures as well. Judging from some _other_ former Borg that I've had the opportunity to treat, I'm sure there are a multitude of unnecessary implants that should be removed from his body."

The Doctor glanced back at Icheb, who graced him with an exaggerated nod of the head. Icheb was well aware that he himself was one of those "former Borg" the Doctor had treated. "I'm sure he'd be very grateful if you could provide those services for him, Doctor," Icheb said, trying to hide his smile. "I believe the medical drones on his sphere were forced to deal with life and death matters after they were severed from the Collective. Restoring a drone's physical appearance was not a high priority."

"I suppose not." The Doctor sighed. Icheb had observed that same expression of longing on the EMH's face many times, when Icheb caught him gazing at his mother before her relationship with Chakotay, as well as after it ended. If he still cherished hopes of winning his mother for himself, Axum's entrance into the picture must be a fatal blow.

Icheb turned several possible comments over in his mind before hitting upon the one that appeared most appropriate for the occasion. "Doctor, when Annika Hansen met Axum in Unimatrix Zero, physical attraction played little part in the equation. When they fell in love, it was because, in the words of the immortal Bard of Avon, they shared a 'marriage of true minds.' All they really had there _was_ their minds."

The Doctor sighed. He could recognize a painful truth when he heard it; a truth that cut more deeply than the sharpest rapier wielded by any tragic hero. His own body was a holographic facsimile of his creator's appearance. He'd always understood that Seven of Nine, the former and present Annika Hansen, did not care about physical appearances. That was something that had always caused him to hope for something more than the friendship they'd long shared. He could see the tender way the object of his affections gazed at the patient on the biobed, a man who, in his natural state as an individual, was surely as gentle a young man as Seven had said he was. The Doctor, despite his frequent flights of fancy, was a realist. Hope died.

=/\=

When Axum began to stir, Annika stood up and hovered over him, glancing frequently at the readings on the monitor near his biobed. She was gratified to see his brainwaves assume the pattern consistent with awakening. His eyes opened. For a few seconds, she read confusion in them as he oriented himself to this unfamiliar location. He'd lost consciousness in Cargo Bay Two. He'd never been in _Voyager's_ Sickbay before.

"It's all right, Axum. I'm here"

His eyes focused on her face. Slowly, he began to smile. "Annika. Am I in Heaven?"

She remembered something he'd once told her: that she'd asked the very same question when she'd first arrived in Unimatrix Zero. But there, waking up meant leaving the sanctuary behind, to become again the mindless drone of the Collective.

Waking up had a whole new meaning for them now. She bent down and kissed him before she answered him.

"This isn't Heaven, Axum. But now that you're here, it's close enough."

=/\=

End

=/\=

* * *

 _Paramount/CBS/whoever-they're-affiliated-with-at-the-moment owns Star Trek and all its permutations since Gene Roddenberry first conceived of "Wagon Train in Space." I make no claims of ownership of the franchise, characters, or the episodes. I just like to dwell in that world every now and then._

 _I would be remiss if I did not credit all of the writers of the episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. I referenced many of the episodes from the beginning of Season 4 up to the series finale, "Endgame." I_ _must particularly acknowledge the writers who wrote the episodes upon which this story was primarily based, since I often quoted extensively from their scripts. Thanks, writers! Really couldn't have done it without you._

 _·_ _Scorpion I & II: written by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky_

 _·_ _The Raven: written by Bryan Fuller, story by Bryan Fuller and Harry Doc Kloor_

 _·_ _In the Flesh: written by Nick Sagan_

 _·_ _Infinite Regress: teleplay by Robert J. Doherty, story by Robert J. Doherty and Jimmy Diggs_

 _·_ _Dark Frontier I & II: written by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky_

 _·_ _Someone to Watch Over Me: teleplay by Michael Taylor, story by Brannon Braga_

 _·_ _Survival Instinct: written by Ronald D. Moore_

 _·_ _Collective: teleplay by Michael Taylor, story by Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman_

 _·_ _Unimatrix Zero I: teleplay by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky, story by Mike Sussman_

 _·_ _Unimatrix Zero II: teleplay by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky, story by Mike Sussman and Brannon Braga_

 _·_ _Imperfection: teleplay by Carleton Eastlake and Robert Doherty, story by Andre Bormanis_


End file.
